Opinion ID: 1450597
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Right to an Impartial Jury Limitation of Questioning at Voir Dire

Text: Beuke asserts that the state trial court violated his right to an impartial jury by preventing him from asking prospective jurors why they wished to serve on the jury. The trial court prohibited this line of questioning because it unnecessarily put[ ] the juror on the spot, and subjected him or her to a potentially embarrassing exchange. Beuke raised this claim on direct appeal, and the Ohio Supreme Court found that the trial court's ruling was well within its discretion and that the defense otherwise exercised great latitude in examining the jurors for enmity or bias. Beuke, 526 N.E.2d at 286. The district court similarly found that [t]rial judges have broad discretion in determining whether questions may be asked during voir dire  and that the trial court did not commit constitutional error in restricting these questions. The Supreme Court has consistently stressed the wide discretion granted to the trial court in conducting voir dire . . . in . . . areas of inquiry that might tend to show juror bias. Mu'Min v. Virginia, 500 U.S. 415, 427, 111 S.Ct. 1899, 114 L.Ed.2d 493 (1991); see also Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524, 528, 93 S.Ct. 848, 35 L.Ed.2d 46 (1973) (noting the traditionally broad discretion accorded to the trial judge in conducting voir dire). In the context of voir dire, the trial court violates the defendant's constitutional rights only when it restricts a constitutionally compelled question. See Mu'Min, 500 U.S. at 424-25, 111 S.Ct. 1899. A proffered voir dire question is not constitutionally required simply because it might be helpful in assessing whether a juror is impartial; instead a question is constitutionally compelled only where the failure to ask [that] question[ ] . . . render[s] the defendant's trial fundamentally unfair. Id. at 425-26, 111 S.Ct. 1899. Beuke contends that the trial court violated his constitutional rights because his questions probing the jurors' desires to serve on the jury would have exposed their potential biases. Even though this line of questioning might have helped to expose juror bias, its omission does not result in a fundamentally unfair trial, and therefore it is not constitutionally compelled. See id. Accordingly, we find that the trial court did not commit constitutional error by restricting defense counsel's questioning at voir dire.