Opinion ID: 1968633
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Peremptory Challenges And Comparative Rejection

Text: As we indicated at the outset, we shall decide this case under the plain wording of Rule 4-312(g), which states: Before the exercise of peremptory challenges, the court shall designate from the jury list those jurors who have qualified after examination. The number designated shall be sufficient to provide the number of jurors and alternates to be sworn after allowing for the exercise of peremptory challenges pursuant to Rule 4-313. The court shall at the same time prescribe the order to be followed in selecting the jurors and alternate jurors from the list. (Emphasis added). Rule 4-312(g) sets forth a clear and required procedure that simply was not followed in this case. It directs the court to provide for the parties a list of jurors who have survived challenges for cause, to ensure that the list is sufficiently large to permit a jury (and alternates) to be selected after allowing for the exercise of peremptory challenges, and to provide that list [b]efore the exercise of peremptory challenges. There is nothing arcane or ambiguous about that direction, and, as an examination of its history and development will reveal, it has an important purpose. The right of both the defendant and the Government to challenge prospective jurors without assigning any reason is an ancient one, dating back, in England, to the Thirteenth Century. As Judge Moylan noted in Spencer v. State, supra, 20 Md.App. at 202, 314 A.2d at 728, there are references to the practice in the writings of Bracton and Britton. The first statute on the subject, enacted in 1305 (33 Edw. 1, Stat. 4), abrogated the right of the Crown to peremptory challenges and limited those available to the defendant to 35. In 1533, that number was reduced to 20, except in cases of treason. See, in general, Turpin v. State, 55 Md. 462, 464-465 (1880); Spencer v. State, supra, 20 Md.App. 201, 314 A.2d 727; also 1 Julian J. Alexander, British Statutes in Force in Maryland, 212-14 (Ward Baldwin Coe ed., M. Curlander 2d ed. 1912). [3] Thus it was that, when Maryland was founded as a colony, the only peremptory challenges were those allowed to the defendant35 in cases of treason and 20 in other felony cases. The defendant's right to 20 challenges in non-treason felony cases was referred to in several statutes enacted by the Provincial Assembly ( see Acts of 1737, ch. 2; Acts of 1744, ch. 20; Acts of 1751, ch. 14) and was expressly conferred in the first post-Revolutionary codification of the State criminal law and procedure in 1809. Acts of 1809, ch. 138, § 13. The 1809 statute afforded a defendant 20 peremptory challenges in capital and serious felony cases. In a continuation of the English practice, no provision was made for any peremptory challenges by the State. It was not until 1860 that the State was allowed peremptory challenges in criminal cases, and then only in Baltimore City, where it was allowed five. See Acts of 1860, ch. 308, § 15. In 1872, the State became entitled, in all prosecutions in which the defendant had a right to 20 challenges, to four peremptory challenges. Acts of 1872, ch. 40, § 15. Except for amendments increasing the number of challenges allowed to the State to 10 and expansion of the right to 20 challenges to any case in which the defendant was facing imprisonment in the penitentiary, that statute remained intact until it was repealed in 1963. A number of cases arose during those early years regarding the function of peremptory challenges and the method of exercising them. One of the earliest, Burk v. State, 2 H. & J. 426 (1809), touched obliquely on the issue now before us, although the issue was not raised in the context of any articulated argument of comparative rejection. Burk, being charged with rape, was entitled to 20 peremptory challenges. The initial panel consisted of 24 persons; nine were seated, and 15 were peremptorily excused by Burk. On the State's motion, and without objection from Burk, the court ordered the sheriff to summon only three additional jurors, two of whom were seated and one challenged. Without objection, the sheriff then summoned one additional juror, who was seated. On appeal from his conviction, Burk complained that, because he had five peremptory challenges remaining after the 24-member panel was exhausted, the sheriff should have summoned at least eight additional jurors the first time and, as he still had four challenges left after the three additional jurors were exhausted, the sheriff should have summoned five the second time. This Court found Burk's argument unsupported by authority. Id. at 427. Our predecessors acknowledged that the judge, if he wished, could have summoned a larger number of prospective jurors, to prevent any delay that might occur if the defendant struck a juror, and that he may well have done so had such a request been made, but the Court made clear that, apart from the lack of any objection, there was no requirement in any event that the call be sufficient to supply the deficiency, after the party has completed his challenges. Id. at 428. The 1809 statute drew a distinction, with respect to the summoning of jurors, between cases in which the defendant had a right to peremptory challenges and those in which there was no such right. Section 13, which provided for the 20 peremptory challenges, said nothing about how many jurors were to be summoned or how the challenges were to be exercised. Section 14, on the other hand, provided that, in cases where there was no right of peremptory challenge, the clerk was to summon 20 jurors and write their names on two lists, one for each party. Each party was then to strike up to four names from the list. If each struck four, the remaining 12 would constitute the jury; if less than eight names were stricken, the clerk would make the additional strikes to reduce the list to 12. The law allowed the parties, by mutual consent, to dispense with the calling of 20 jurors and proceed in accordance with the prior practice. [4] Although the four strikes allowed to each party were not regarded as peremptory strikes, it would seem that they served the same purpose, in that no explanation was required to be given for them. That dichotomy remained part of the Maryland statutory law until 1963. In Turpin v. State, supra, 55 Md. 462, which arose after the State acquired the right to four peremptory challenges, the defendant complained that, when a juror was called from the panel, the court insisted that he exercise his peremptory challenge first, before calling upon the State to exercise its challenge. Turpin argued that that practice improperly allowed the State to deny him jurors of his choice. Based largely on English precedent, the views of Justice Story announced in U.S. v. Marchant, 25 U.S. 480, 6 L.Ed. 700, 12 Wheat. 480 (1827), and practice in Maryland and in other American States, this Court rejected that argument, concluding that the defendant's right of peremptory challenge is not a right to select the jurors, but simply to reject such as he may consider objectionable. Turpin, supra, at 469. See also Rogers v. State, 89 Md. 424, 43 A. 922 (1899). By 1961, the statutory law had evolved to the point that, in a case in which a defendant was subject to a penalty of death or confinement in the penitentiary, the defendant was entitled to 20 peremptory challenges and the State was entitled to 10 for each such defendant. In any other case, neither party had a right to peremptory challenges, as such, although, as explained above, each was entitled to strike four names from a list of 20 without explanation. See Maryland Code (1957), Article 51, §§ 18 and 24. In 1961, this Court revised the rules dealing with criminal procedure and, as part of that revision, modified the then-current statutory provisions dealing with peremptory challenges. In Rule 746, we retained the right of the defendant to 20 challenges, and of the State to 10 for each defendant, in cases where the defendant was subject to a penalty of death or confinement in the penitentiary, but we revised what was then § 18 of Article 51 to provide for four peremptory challenges for each side in a non-capital, non-penitentiary case. That conversion of the earlier practice of striking four names from the list into actual peremptory challenges was significant to the extent that, in §§ b. and c. of the rule, we provided that, at the defendant's election, peremptory challenges would be made alternately, beginning with the State (rather than simultaneously from separate, but identical lists) and that a peremptory challenge may be exercised as a matter of right until the time the jury was sworn. [5] In 1963, the General Assembly acquiesced in the changes made by Rule 746 by modifying § 18 and repealing § 24 of Article 51. Section 18 was amended in two relevant respects. First, the Legislature recognized the right of four peremptory challenges in cases not involving death or confinement in the penitentiary and directed the clerk, in those cases, to continue to draw 20 names so that the parties could each exercise their four challenges in accordance with the rule. In the other cases, where 20 and 10 challenges were permitted, the law required that such additional names shall be added to the panel of petit jurors as may be necessary to enable the parties to exercise their right of peremptory challenge in accordance with Rule 746.... Acts of 1963, ch. 558, § 11; Md. Code (1957, 1964 Repl.Vol.), Art. 51, § 18. With the enactment of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article in 1973, as part of the Code Revision process, that provision was consolidated as § 8-301(c) of the new article, to provide that [t]he clerk of the court shall provide a sufficient number of prospective jurors to allow the parties to exercise the peremptory challenges permitted by this section or Rule 746. Upon the promulgation of Rule 746 and the conforming statutory amendments, both parties had the right to exercise peremptory challenges in all criminal cases triable before a jury, the number depending only on whether the defendant was facing death or incarceration in the penitentiary. Only three matters of procedure were dealt with, however the statutory direction that the clerk provide a sufficient number of prospective jurors to allow the parties to make their challenges and the provisions in the rule that, at the defendant's request, the challenges would be made alternately and that a juror could be peremptorily challenged until the jury was sworn. In 1971, we modified Rule 746 to reduce to four the number of peremptory challenges when the defendant was facing less than 20 years in prison. That was the construct in effect when, in 1974, the Court of Special Appeals decided Spencer v. State, supra, 20 Md.App. 201, 314 A.2d 727. The defendant in that case was entitled to 20 peremptory challenges and the State was entitled to 10. The parties were presented with three separate lists, containing in the aggregate 50 prospective jurors, all of whom remained in the pool after voir dire examination. Beginning with the first list, the clerk called the names of the jurors in the order they appeared on the list; the State used three challenges and the defendant used 10. Eight jurors were tentatively selected. The clerk then turned to the second list, again calling jurors in the order in which their names appeared. Through the use of additional challenges, both from that list and as to jurors already tentatively seated, the second list was exhausted with only 11 jurors seated. The State had used its 10 challenges, but the defendant still had three remaining. Counsel examined the first four names on the third list and decided that the fourth juror was better than the first three, so he used his remaining challenges to strike the first three names. With no explanation, the clerk, instead of calling the fourth person, as counsel had expected, jumped over the next three persons and called the eighth person on the list, and the defendant objected, unsuccessfully. The Court of Special Appeals reversed. Although eschewing any ironclad ritual to govern the calling of jurors, it held that, where the rules have been agreed upon, either explicitly or implicitly through settled usage, a defendant is entitled to rely upon those rules, unless good cause necessitates some departure therefrom and that, under the peculiar circumstances of that case, the arbitrary and capricious action of the court clerk constituted a violation of Spencer's right to due process of law. Id. at 208, 314 A.2d at 731-32. The due process violation stemmed from the court's conclusion that Spencer had been affirmatively misled into believing that the clerk would continue to call the names in order. It observed that, although the right of peremptory challenge entitles a defendant only to reject jurors and not to select others, there is at least some element of indirect selection inexorably at work in the very process of elimination and that [t]he right to reject need not be exercised in the dark, but is, under circumstances such as those here available, a right of informed and comparative rejection. Id. In using his last challenges to reject the first three jurors on the third list, said the court, Spencer was deciding that he liked them less than he liked the fourth, and that, had he known that he was comparing the three persons challenged with some other fourth person further down the list, he might well have preferred one, or more, of the rejected threesome to the unanticipated fourth. Id. Relying on Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965), for the proposition that impairment of the right of peremptory challenge constitutes a violation of due process of law, the court declared that, in exercising that right, a defendant is entitled to expect that the rules that have been operating will not strangely cease to operate once his options haven been exhausted. Id. at 209, 314 A.2d 727. In 1977, we again rewrote the rules on criminal procedure, replacing Rule 746 with Rule 753. Except to allow a defendant two additional peremptory challenges for each alternate juror to be chosen (and the State one) and to amplify the method of exercising challenges alternately, the changes were essentially ones of style. That rule was in effect when the Court of Special Appeals decided Dean v. State, supra, 46 Md.App. 536, 420 A.2d 288, which involved a situation somewhat closer to the one at hand. The defendant in Dean was charged with four kidnappings, all arising from a single incident. In light of the four charges, each carrying a possible 20-year sentence, he was able to persuade the court, with initial acquiescence by the State, that he was entitled to 80 peremptory challenges and that the State was entitled to 40, and the case proceeded on that assumption. [6] When the case was first called for trial, only 101 jurors were available, and, when Dean asked what would happen if, with 120 peremptory strikes, they ran out of jurors, the prosecutor said that it would not be a problem because she did not intend to use her 40 strikes. After Dean exercised 67 challenges and the State exercised 15, the venire was exhausted with only 11 jurors tentatively seated. The case was then postponed for two weeks, over Dean's objection. Prior to resumption of the trial, Dean objected to the array, complaining about the bifurcated jury selection process. He renewed his objection when trial resumed and the parties were presented with a new list of 48 jurors, which included the names of some jurors who had been on the earlier list of 101 and had been excused. Dean's counsel complained that, had the new list been before him earlier, he would not have stricken some of the jurors he struck from the first list. The court overruled his objection and jury selection proceeded. Dean eventually used all of his 80 strikes. The Court of Special Appeals reversed. It noted the requirement of § 8-301(c) of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article (now § 8-301(e) of that article) that the clerk provide a sufficient number of jurors to allow the parties to exercise the peremptory challenges permitted by law and declared that, with a minimum of 132 jurors needed in light of the 120 challenges then believed permissible, the clerk violated at least the spirit, if not the mandate, of the statute by supplying only 101 jurors. Although, in light of the State's undertaking not to exercise its 40 challenges, it was not expected that the available list would be exhausted, when the unexpected occurred, the court held that, to require the remaining challenges to be made from a hitherto unknown list of prospective jurors deprived the appellant of the right to `informed and comparative rejection.' Id. at 547, 420 A.2d at 294-95, citing Spencer v. State and Swain v. Alabama . We touched upon, but distinguished, Spencer v. State in Pollitt v. State, 344 Md. 318, 686 A.2d 629 (1996). There, immediately after a jury was selected and sworn, without alternates, the court, with the consent of the parties, excused one juror when it discovered that she had difficulty hearing. The parties agreed that the court would select a replacement from the venire, which was still in the courtroom. The court then chose the next person on the list, to which Pollitt objected, urging that, as the selection was essentially that of an alternate, he was entitled to an additional peremptory challenge. The court disagreed. In the Court of Special Appeals, and ultimately in this Court, Pollitt argued both that the court's procedure denied him a right of comparative rejection and that it violated his right to an additional challenge with respect to alternates. In response to his first argument, we cited and discussed Spencer v. State but noted that the decision there rested on Spencer's having been affirmatively misled by the arbitrary and unexplained action of the clerk in departing from the standard procedure used up to that point, and that no such conduct had occurred in Pollitt's case. In thus distinguishing Spencer (and in not even citing Dean ) we neither accepted nor rejected the underlying doctrine of comparative rejection, at least as a component of due process of law. We reversed on the ground that, under the circumstances, the court had three possible choicesdeclare a mistrial, proceed with 11 jurors, or replace the juror with anotherbut that the latter two options required the consent of the parties. As no one sought to proceed with 11 jurors and as there was no consent by Pollitt to selecting another juror, absent his being allowed an additional peremptory challenge, the court's only effective option was to declare a mistrial. As noted, the Court of Special Appeals in this case disavowed Dean, declaring that the Dean court had misread Swain  and was overly zealous in extending Spencer. Booze v. State, supra, 111 Md.App. at 231, 681 A.2d at 545. We have recounted the statutory and rule history in some detail because the cases relied uponparticularly Spencer and Dean  have to be viewed in the context of what the prevailing law was when they were decided. We thus turn to the final development, up to this point, which, as we have indicated, really governs the matter. In 1984, this Court, through the adoption of the Eighty-Seventh Report of its Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, once again substantially rewrote the rules dealing with criminal procedure. As part of that revision, Rule 4-312, dealing generally with jury selection in criminal cases, was adopted. Rule 4-312 combined features of former rules 751, 752, 753, and 754 but also introduced several new provisions, the overall thrust of which was to give the parties more information about prospective jurors and thus allow them to make more informed choices in selecting the jury. In § (c), a requirement was added that, before the examination of jurors commenced, each party be provided with a list of jurors that included, as to each juror, the juror's name, age, sex, education, occupation, occupation of spouse, and any other information required by the county jury plan. Section (d) added the provision that, upon request of a party, the clerk was to call the roll of the jury and have each juror stand and be identified when called by name. Section (f) introduced a requirement that, if it appeared that the number of jurors of the regular panel might be insufficient, the court may direct that additional jurors be called. That provision meshed with the new requirement of § (g) that, prior to the exercise of peremptory challenges, the court must provide a list of qualified jurors sufficient to allow a jury and alternates to be selected after the exercise of peremptory challenges. These various provisions, including § (g), need to be read together, and, when so read, they communicate clearly this Court's intent that, to the extent possible, the parties should have before them the entire pool of prospective jurors before being required to exercise any of their peremptory challenges. That intent is not, in any sense, inconsistent with the basic notion that the function of peremptory challenges is to reject rather than to select jurors. It simply manifests the belief that the parties should have the right to exercise their rejections intelligently and strategically, and that they can better do that if they have the full panel of prospective jurors before them. This is not necessarily a matter of due process. By adopting Rule 4-312(g), we have made that intent a mandate of State judicial policy, and, in the absence of a waiver or other compelling circumstance, we insist that it be followed. In this case, it was not followed, and there was neither a waiver nor any justification for the deviation.