Opinion ID: 1201220
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Jury Pool Selection Outside Defendant's Presence

Text: Defendant argues that the trial court violated his right under Article I, Section 23 of the North Carolina Constitution to be present at all proceedings of his capital trial when the deputy clerk selected forty-eight prospective jurors from the pool in the jury assembly room, outside defendant's presence. A defendant's right to be present at all proceedings of his capital trial under Article I, Section 23 is unwaivable. State v. Boyd, 332 N.C. 101, 105, 418 S.E.2d 471, 473 (1992) (citations omitted). Thus, even though defendant did not objectand actually consented to the actions of the jury clerkwe will still consider his argument. When defendant's 2007 penalty proceeding began, the trial court informed the parties that it appeared a civil trial would be occurring concurrently in another courtroom. Approximately eighty prospective jurors had reported for duty and were being held in the jury assembly room. The trial court proposed that forty-eight jurors be selected by the jury clerk for possible service in this case. There was no objection to this plan of action. Following some discussion on administrative matters, the trial court informed the parties that the clerk had anticipated what we were going to do, based upon my comments a moment ago and had already communicated that to the courtroom  excuse me, to the jury clerk who is working with the venire, and she has already drawn out 48 people and will call those names. A few days later, as the jury was still being selected, the trial court informed the parties: Friday afternoon, I discussed with ... the Trial Court Administrator, the process of selecting additional jurors for this week. And tentatively decided that the best thing to do would be to select a number of jurors from the venire first thing this morning and have just those jurors fill out questionnaires since they certainly need other jurors for other matters going on here in the courtroom or the courthouse this week. There was no objection by either party to the jury clerk's selecting thirty prospective jurors at random in this manner. Defendant asserts that he had a constitutional right to be present when the prospective jurors were being chosen. Jurors are selected in the courtroom pursuant to section 15A-1214(a), which provides in pertinent part: The clerk, under the supervision of the presiding judge, must call jurors from the panel by a system of random selection which precludes advance knowledge of the identity of the next juror to be called. N.C.G.S. § 15A-1214(a) (2007). The purpose of random selection in the courtroom is to ensure that neither party knows the identity of the next prospective juror to be questioned. To the extent defendant is challenging the initial organization of the entire venire into separate panels that were later sent sequentially to the courtroom, such a process was a purely administrative matter and not a proceeding at which defendant is entitled to be present. We find State v. Workman, 344 N.C. 482, 476 S.E.2d 301 (1996), instructive even though defendant's case had been called for trial. In Workman this Court stated: Defendant's right to be present at all stages of his trial does not include the right to be present during preliminary handling of the jury venires before defendant's own case has been called. Id. at 498, 476 S.E.2d at 309 (citations omitted). Likewise, in the instant case, the random segregation of the entire jury pool so that it could be split among defendant's proceeding and other matters being handled at the courthouse that day was a preliminary administrative matter at which defendant did not have a right to be present. See State v. McNeill, 349 N.C. 634, 642-43, 509 S.E.2d 415, 420 (1998) (stating that defendant did not have the right to be present when prospective jurors were sworn in by a deputy clerk in the jury assembly room and the jurors were subject to assignment in any one of six superior courts in session as well as any number of district courts), cert. denied, 528 U.S. 838, 120 S.Ct. 102, 145 L.Ed.2d 87 (1999). Moreover, to march a defendant who had been shackled because of a physical assault of his attorney and who had been recently convicted of two counts of first-degree murder through the courtroom halls into a jury room in order for him to be present during the random drawing of names of prospective jurors is impractical and most likely an administrative impossibility. Because defendant's right to be present at all proceedings does not extend to the jury assembly room, we disagree with defendant's contention that his right to be present was violated. Defendant's assignment of error is overruled.