Opinion ID: 440538
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The peremptory strike procedure

Text: 49 At the pretrial conference, the district court gave counsel for appellants a choice in the exercise of their peremptory challenges. Either they could exercise three challenges apiece without conferring among themselves prior to announcing the strikes each intended to make (for a maximum total of eighteen challenges, or a minimum of three, depending upon the extent to which the strikes overlapped), or they could collectively exercise fifteen strikes after consultation. Appellants chose the latter option and now contend that because the collective decision making process required lawyers-only conferences and decision making outside the earshot of their clients, the appellants were denied their right to be represented by counsel and to be present at a critical stage in the proceedings. 50 Rules 43 and 44 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure embody a criminal defendant's rights under the sixth amendment to the United States Constitution to be present and to be represented by counsel at every stage of the proceedings against him, including the impaneling of the jury. Fed.R.Crim.P. 43(a), 44(a); Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 338, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 1058, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970); United States v. Chrisco, 493 F.2d 232 (8th Cir.1974). Those rights necessarily extend to that phase of the jury selection process involving the exercise of peremptory strikes. Chrisco, 493 F.2d at 236-37. 51 Rule 24(b) outlines the appropriate procedures for exercise of peremptory challenges: 52 If the offense charged is punishable by imprisonment for more than one year, the government is entitled to 6 peremptory challenges and the defendant or defendants jointly to 10 peremptory challenges ... If there is more than one defendant, the court may allow the defendants additional peremptory challenges and permit them to be exercised separately or jointly. 53 Fed.R.Crim.Pro. 24(b). The procedure utilized in the appellants' trial comported with Rule 24: the defendants were permitted jointly to exercise fifteen peremptory strikes--ten as a matter of right under the rule, and an additional five in the discretion of the trial court because there was more than one defendant involved. Appellants do not dispute this, but argue nevertheless that because the lawyers conferred among themselves outside the courtroom before exercising their peremptory strikes, their clients were simultaneously denied access to counsel and their right to be present. 54 We disagree. Nothing in the record suggests that counsel were rendered unable to confer with their clients in the course of the peremptory strike process. At the pretrial conference, the court told counsel that I will give you an opportunity to confer among yourselves back in the back outside the hearing of everybody before you have to exercise your peremptory challenges, and at the voir dire, counsel took advantage of that opportunity. Nothing prevented counsel from speaking with their clients after they had conferred informally among themselves, before they made their strikes. Under these circumstances, we are unable to conclude that the appellants were deprived of their right to counsel. United States v. Alessandrello, 637 F.2d 131, 144 (3d Cir.1980); Chrisco, 493 F.2d at 237. 55 We likewise hold that the defendants were not denied their right to be present during the peremptory strike phase of jury selection. This case is quite close on its facts to the Eighth Circuit's decision in United States v. Chrisco, 493 F.2d 232 (8th Cir.1974). In Chrisco, the defendants were absent from the courtroom when their counsel informally conferred and made their peremptory strikes (a situation somewhat more troubling than in the instant case, where the defendants were in the courtroom at all times, and counsel left briefly to confer). The Chrisco court nevertheless held that the defendants had not been denied their right to be present for the peremptory strike phase of the jury selection process, in light of the following facts: the defendants were in the courtroom when the voir dire questioning took place and again when the peremptory strikes were given actual effect by the clerk's reading off the list; the defendants had the opportunity to discuss their misgivings with counsel during or immediately following the impaneling process; and no objection was made at the time to the defendants' absence from the informal peremptory strike conference. For the same reasons, we conclude that the defendants were sufficiently present at the impaneling of the jury to satisfy the sixth amendment and Rule 43 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.