Opinion ID: 2372009
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Release of Prospective Jurors 7, 17, 23, 42, 59, and 77

Text: ¶ 42 On January 2, 2007, the process of selecting a jury in Mr. Irby's case involved the jurors filling out a questionnaire. At the time, the expectation was that Irby's trial would be lengthy, lasting three weeks. ¶ 43 The trial court sent an e-mail to counsel suggesting that potential jurors 7, 17, 23, 42, 59, and 77 be released for reasons that did not involve the factual and legal issues in Irby's case. Counsel for both sides agreed to the release of these potential jurors. Potential jurors 7, 23, 42, and 59 had been granted a jury service commitment of only a week by the court administrator. Initially, the fact that the court administrator rather than the trial court granted limited jury service to these potential jurors raises no concern. In Rice, the defendant complained that the court failed to follow statutory requirements for jury selection because the clerk, not the judge, excused prospective jurors for hardship and other personal reasons pursuant to detailed procedures and guidelines provided by a judge to the clerk. Rice, 120 Wash.2d at 560-61, 844 P.2d 416. This court concluded that RCW 2.36.100 was not violated because in using the word court in the statute the legislature did not express a preference that any particular member of the institutionjudge or clerkperform the duties under RCW 2.36.100. Rice, 120 Wash.2d at 562, 844 P.2d 416. Therefore, the court's act in delegating discretion to excuse jurors, under specific guidelines provided by the court, was permissible. Similarly, in the present case, the court's delegation of discretion to the court administrator to limit the length of jury service was permissible. ¶ 44 The trial court in this case also suggested that potential juror 17 be released because this individual home-schooled and an extended trial would be a hardship, and also suggested that potential juror 77 be released on the basis of a business hardship. ¶ 45 All six of the jurors were released from jury service. However, release of these six potential jurors had nothing to do with defendant Terrance Irby's particular case or factual or legal issues pertaining to it. The reasons for the trial court's release of these jurors are also completely unrelated to the questioning that occurred by way of having these jurors fill out the questionnaire on January 2, 2007, that specifically involved questions related to Irby's case. ¶ 46 As mentioned, the decisions of numerous courts show that no error occurred in release of these jurors. In addition to the United States Supreme Court's analysis in Gomez, and the analyses employed by the New York, Florida, and Mississippi courts set forth above, the cases that follow also demonstrate that no constitutional invalidity results when this routine part of jury selection occurs in the absence of the defendant. ¶ 47 In Soto v. Commonwealth, 139 S.W.3d 827, 852 (Ky.2004), before voir dire began, the judge met with counsel for both sides in chambers to discuss whether six jurors who asserted hardship grounds for being excused should be dismissed. The judge interviewed each of the jurors and excused five of them for hardship reasons. Id. The defendant was not present. The Supreme Court of Kentucky held there was no constitutional error resulting from the defendant's absence, explaining that hardship excusals are within the discretion of the trial court and consultation with the parties or counsel is not required before a hardship excusal occurs. Id. ¶ 48 Similarly, the North Carolina Supreme Court held that the defendant's right to be present at all stages of the trial was not violated when five prospective jurors were justifiably excused (one because he was 93 and suffered from Alzheimer's, one because he was a full-time student who had already served as a juror in several civil cases during that session of court, and three because they were out of the state or country). State v. Cummings, 352 N.C. 600, 612, 536 S.E.2d 36 (2000). ¶ 49 In State v. Martis, 277 Kan. 267, 294-97, 83 P.3d 1216 (2004), 15 jurors were excused without having to come to court on the ground that they would suffer financial hardship; for example some owned one-person businesses and could not maintain their business if they came in and served on a jury and others would not be paid by their employer while on jury duty and would suffer financial hardship. The defendant argued that his Sixth Amendment right to be present was violated by these excusals when the individuals were not required to come to court and be questioned about the veracity of their claims. The Kansas Supreme Court found no violation of the constitutional right to be present. Id. at 297, 83 P.3d 1216. ¶ 50 In Commonwealth v. Barnoski, 418 Mass. 523, 638 N.E.2d 9 (1994), a number of jurors had been granted hardship excusals after a preliminary inquiry at which the defendant was not present. The defendant contended that his right to be present was violated. The Massachusetts Supreme Court disagreed, noting that a trial court has broad discretion in the jury selection process to excuse jurors upon findings of hardship, inconvenience, or public necessity. Id. at 530, 638 N.E.2d 9. The court said that it was aware of no case that holds a defendant has a constitutional right to be present at preliminary hardship colloquies of members of the jury pool and cases were to the contrary. Id. The court distinguished individual, substantive, voir dire from [t]he purely administrative determination whether a prospective juror was able to serve without undue hardship, which it found was not a `critical stage.' Id. at 531, 638 N.E.2d 9. ¶ 51 Federal courts have drawn the same distinction drawn by state courts. In United States v. Greer, 285 F.3d 158 (2d Cir.2002), the defendants argued that reversible error occurred when the trial court excluded them and their counsel from in camera meetings with jury veniremembers relating to hardship excuses. The court observed that it had already held that routine jury administrative procedures relating to jury selection were not part of the true jury impanelment process in which the parties and counsel have a right to participate. Id. at 167 (citing United States v. Woodner, 317 F.2d 649 (2d Cir. 1963)). The court explained that hardship questioning is not a part of voir dire and thus is not a critical stage of the trial during which the parties and counsel must be present. Id. at 168. The court also noted that it had upheld the constitutionality of a court's practice of having a jury clerk rather than a trial judge excuse certain veniremembers on hardship grounds. Id. (citing United States v. Williams, 927 F.2d 95, 97 (2d Cir.1991)). The court held that to the extent the district court had addressed routine administrative matters with the jurors, no error occurred when it excluded the parties (the defendants and the prosecution) and counsel from the in camera proceedings. ¶ 52 In Cohen v. Senkowski, 290 F.3d 485, 488-90 (2d Cir.2002), in contrast, the Second Circuit concluded that the defendant's right to be present during critical stages of the proceedings was violated when jurors were prescreened, out of his presence, about their exposure to pretrial publicity of the case, while confirming its holding in Greer that no such violation occurs when prospective jurors are questioned about matters such as personal hardship in serving, i.e., the administrative empanelment process. ¶ 53 Other federal courts have also found no right to be present during questioning of prospective jurors for hardships reasons unrelated to the substance of the defendant's trial. E.g., Henderson v. Dugger, 925 F.2d 1309, 1316 (11th Cir.1991) (district court's denial of petition for a writ of habeas corpus upheld in capital case; general jury qualification where the trial court was deciding which potential jurors were to be excused for reasons such as hardship or age was not a critical stage of the proceedings at which defendant has a right to be present); United States v. Calaway, 524 F.2d 609, 615-16 (9th Cir. 1975) (finding no constitutional violation where the trial court questioned jurors about hardship outside the presence of the defendants, their counsel, and the court reporter), abrogated on other grounds by Bourjaily v. United States, 483 U.S. 171, 107 S.Ct. 2775, 97 L.Ed.2d 144 (1987). ¶ 54 The majority believes, however, that potential jurors 7, 17, 23, 42, 59, and 77 had to be questioned in Irby's presence to establish the truth of their claimed hardships before they could be released. Majority at 802-03. The majority cites no authority for this conclusion and this is not surprising. Nothing in the statutes suggests that a trial court's discretion must be limited in this way. Further, for at least a hundred years it has been the law that doubts about whether a potential juror was rejected on sufficient grounds do not require a new trial unless as a result an unqualified jury was selected. In State v. Phillips, 65 Wash. 324, 327, 118 P. 43 (1911), the defendant contended that the trial court erred in excusing a potential juror due to doubt about the citizenship of a potential juror whom the trial court excused without proof that he was not a United States citizen. This court explained that a defendant has no vested right in having any particular juror sit on his case until the juror is accepted and sworn, and found that the law was satisfied because the defendant was tried by a qualified and impartial jury. Id. In State v. Killen, 39 Wash.App. 416, 693 P.2d 731 (1985), the defendant contended that his right to an impartial jury was denied when the trial court temporarily set aside from the jury selection process the names of three veniremembers who said they had scheduling conflicts with the trial. The defendant did not claim that the jury that sat on his case was biased or otherwise unqualified. The Court of Appeals found no violation of the constitutional right, and no abuse of discretion under RCW 2.36. 100 and Phillips. See also State v. Langford, 67 Wash.App. 572, 837 P.2d 1037 (1992). ¶ 55 Thus, absent some showing that excusing a potential juror resulted in an unqualified or biased jury sitting on his case, Mr. Irby has no reason to complain about the trial court's decision to release potential jurors on grounds that justify excusal in the discretion of the court. He makes no such claim. Identifying these jurors did not result from their answers to the January 2, 2007, questionnaire that related to facts in Irby's case, because none of the questions on that questionnaire concerned the reasons for which these potential jurors were released. ¶ 56 A defendant has no voice in excusals based on hardship and cannot complain unless a biased or unqualified jury results. It must be remembered that the right of a criminal defendant regarding jury selection is `the right to reject, not to select a juror.' Howard v. Kentucky, 200 U.S. 164, 174, 26 S.Ct. 189, 50 L.Ed. 421 (1906) (quoting Brown v. New Jersey, 175 U.S. 172, 20 S.Ct. 77, 44 L.Ed. 119 (1899)).