Opinion ID: 2356861
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Harmless Error and the Morgan Standard

Text: Appellant argues that the holding in Morgan v. Commonwealth, 189 S.W.3d at 104, should be reversed. In Morgan , this Court held that the trial court's error in not properly striking a juror for cause was harmless (even though the defendant therein had to exercise a peremptory challenge to remove a biased juror), because no unqualified juror sat on his case. He further argues that the Morgan holding gives trial court judges insulation from appellate review. The majority in Morgan focused on whether the defendant had in fact been tried by an impartial jury, and concluded that he had. Its logic appeared inescapable that the failure to strike a juror for cause could not have affected that jury's verdict, and therefore the trial court judge's abuse of discretion was harmless error. What the majority in Morgan did not focus on was whether the trial court's error affected the actual fairness of the trial because the defendant was not allowed fair process in selecting the jury that tried him. It is a fundamental tenet that a person charged with a crime is entitled to a fair trial. RCr 9.36(1) establishes the standard a trial judge is required to apply in voir dire: When there is reasonable ground to believe that a prospective juror cannot render a fair and impartial verdict on the evidence, he shall be excused as not qualified. The language to the trial court is mandatory. RCr 9.40 gives a defendant eight peremptory challenges plus one if alternates are seated. This Court, in its rule-making capacity, has recognized that this is beyond question a valuable right going to the defendant's peace of mind and the public's view of fairness. It is fundamentally inconsistent for the Court to give with one hand and take away with the other, a position that does not invite public trust in the integrity of the judicial system. In distinguishing Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80 (1988) which held that an Oklahoma law that required a defendant to prove that an incompetent juror was forced upon him was not unconstitutional, Justice Leibson wrote in Thomas v. Commonwealth, 864 S.W.2d 252 (Ky.1993): Kentucky law has always been to the contrary, that prejudice is presumed, and the defendant is entitled to a reversal in those cases where a defendant is forced to exhaust his peremptory challenges against prospective jurors who should have been excused for cause.... When a defendant does exhaust all of his peremptory challenges, he has been denied the full use of peremptory challenges by having been required to use peremptory challenges on jurors who should have been excused for cause. Id. at 259 (internal citations omitted). Justice Leibson went on to point out that when a defendant is forced to use a peremptory strike on a juror who has not been properly excused for cause, the court has actually taken away from the number of peremptories given to the defendant by rule of this Court. By their very nature, peremptory challenges are not for cause; they can be for any reason whatsoever, except that the juror is a member of a protected class. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed2d 69 (1986). To shortchange a defendant in this manner is to effectively give the Commonwealth more peremptory challenges than the defendant. The reverse is true if the court fails to properly strike for cause a juror unfavorable to the Commonwealth. A trial is not fair if only parts of it can be called fair. The Court in Morgan was very divided. The justices differed over whether peremptory strikes were a substantial right entitled to per se protection or merely a procedural right that supported the substantial (and constitutional) right to a fair trial, whereby having to use a peremptory strike for a juror who should have been struck for cause was not prejudicial so long as a qualified jury was seated. The Court in Thomas had merely held that Kentucky law, as opposed to federal law, regarded peremptories as a substantial right not to be shortchanged by a trial court's failure to properly strike for cause. Three justices agreed to reverse Thomas ; a fourth wrote separately, concurring in result only, (thereby creating a majority for the result of the case) and was joined by one of the other three. Three justices dissented, with two writing separately, and all three joining in both Opinions. This made the final result three for, three against, and one who concurred to make a majority but would have written a different majority opinion. Both the majority and dissent in Morgan focused on the fairness and impartiality of the jury that was selected. The majority took the view that if the jury the defendant ended up with was qualified, it was a fair jury and the defendant had received a fair trial. The dissent held fast to the notion that peremptories were a protected substantial right under state law, and that a jury selected by causing a defendant to exhaust his peremptories on a juror who should have been excused for cause could not be fairly seated. Given that Thomas was controlling authority at the time, this argument had merit. The issue is actually simple: Can a trial be called fair and the jury impartial if the method of arriving at a qualified jury is not? The majority in Morgan would accept that a defendant could stumble into fairness even if everything that occurred before the jury was selected was not. If a right is important enough to be given to a party in the first instance, it must be analyzed to determine if it is substantial, particularly where deprivation of the right results in a final jury that is not the jury a party was entitled to select. Here, the defendant was tried by a jury that was obtained by forcing him to forgo a different peremptory strike he was entitled to make. If he had been allowed that strike, he may well have struck one of the jurors who actually sat on the jury. He came into the trial expecting to be able to remove jurors that made him uncomfortable in any way except in violation of Batson v. Kentucky ; this was a right given to him by law and rule. Depriving him of that right so taints the equity of the proceedings that no jury selected from that venire could result in a fair trial. No jury so obtained can be presumed to be a fair one. An error affecting the fundamental right of an unbiased proceeding goes to the integrity of the entire trial process. While the federal courts may not regard peremptory strikes as a Constitutional guarantee to either litigant, prior Kentucky law has determined that it is a substantial right when a defendant uses all his peremptory strikes and was forced to use one of them on a juror who should have been struck for cause. To do anything less is to make a mockery of the very rules and procedures created by this Court, and indeed does allow a trial court to commit error under the Morgan holding that is not subject to correction because all the jurors who sat were qualified. Qualified or not, that is not the jury the defendant was given a fair opportunity to acquire. In United States v. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. 304, 120 S.Ct. 774, 145 L.Ed.2d 792 (2000), a federal case factually similar to this case, the United States Supreme Court determined that a defendant is not required to use a peremptory strike to correct a trial judge's error, but if he does, and the resulting jury is unbiased, there has been no violation of a constitutional right or federal rule-based right. Referencing Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80 (1988), where the Court had determined that Ross had received all that was due under Oklahoma law, id. at 92, 108 S.Ct. at 2275, it found that the defendant had received precisely what federal law provided. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. at 317, 120 S.Ct. at 782. However, it should be noted that both Ross and Martinez-Salazar hinge on what was due under the state or federal law. Both cases recognize that there is an entitlement to what has been given to a defendant by way of process, and if an act of the trial court negates that process, reversal is required. Cf. id. (noting that the due process claim failed only because the defendant received what he was entitled to under the federal rules); Ross, 487 U.S. at 89, 108 S.Ct. at 2279 (same under state law). They both merely affirm longstanding federal law that there is no constitutional right which requires the granting of peremptory strikes. Rather, whether to give peremptory strikes, and how many, has been left to the states to determine for their own courts by statute or rule, not through their constitutions. Morgan, 189 S.W.3d at 124 (Cooper, J., dissenting). There is nothing in either Ross or Martinez-Salazar that requires the states to adopt their reasoning as to the weight, or substantial value a state may place on the exercise of peremptory strikes. Giving a lengthy description of the history of peremptory strikes in his dissenting opinion in Morgan , Justice Cooper traces the use of peremptories from the 1700's to the date of Morgan , concluding that while there is no constitutional guarantee to peremptory strikes, our law has held the exercise of peremptory strikes to be a substantial right, citing numerous Kentucky cases where a juror had not been struck for cause and the defendant used all his peremptories. Id. at 135-37. The thrust of this history is that up until Morgan , Kentucky courts had consistently held that denial or misallocation of peremptory strikes is per se reversible error. In fact, it is best to view peremptory strikes in the context of strikes for cause. When a juror is not properly struck for cause, without peremptory strikes, a defendant would find himself forced into an unfair trial. The substantial nature of a peremptory strike is thus obvious in this context. The remaining question is whether peremptory strikes are substantial when not being exercised to prevent a known unfairness. Given that [wihen the right of challenge is lost or impaired, the statutory conditions and terms for setting up an authorized jury are not met; the right to challenge a given number of jurors without showing cause is one of the most important rights of a litigant, id. at 137 (Cooper, J., dissenting)the obvious answer, long supported in our law, is yes. Thus, the correct inquiry is not whether using a peremptory strike for a juror who should have been excused for cause had a reasonable probability of affecting the verdict (harmless error), but whether the trial court who abused its discretion by not striking that juror for reasonable cause deprived the defendant of a substantial right. Harmless error analysis is simply not appropriate where a substantial right is involved, and is indeed logically best suited to the effect of evidence on a verdict, though some procedural errors may also be reviewed in this light. Here, the defendant did not get the trial he was entitled to get. For these reasons, the holding in Morgan must be overturned.