Opinion ID: 423527
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Juror Pfeffer.

Text: 100 Juror Pfeffer presents the opposite problem from Wells. Indeed, the voir dire of Pfeffer may be the quintessential example of a situation in which it would be appropriate for an appellate court to give at least some deference to the trial judge, who has had the opportunity to observe the juror as he or she struggles to give an honest answer to difficult questions. Regardless of whether such deference is advisable, our own independent review of the record indicates that Pfeffer's exclusion was not in violation of Witherspoon. 101 As we observed in our decision to grant O'Bryan a stay of execution, and as the court of criminal appeals recognized, during the initial two-thirds of Pfeffer's lengthy voir dire examination (covering twenty-four pages in the transcript), he was 102 equivocal in stating his position on capital punishment. He described himself as a borderline thinker on the issue of capital punishment, and expressed doubt that he could make the proper judgment because of his mixed feelings concerning the infliction of the death penalty. 103 O'Bryan v. Estelle, 691 F.2d 706, 709 (5th Cir.1982). When informed by the trial court that he must give a definitive answer, Pfeffer stated that he would have to say that he could not vote to impose the death penalty, although he continued to add caveats from time to time, referring to the necessity for giving the judge a yes or no answer, to give a correct answer, or for the good of everyone concerned: 104 THE COURT: Well, the law requires that we have to have a definite answer. 105 JUROR PFEFFER: I understand, right. 106 THE COURT: Because the law does allow people to be excused because of certain beliefs that could be prejudicial or biased for one side or the other, and both sides just want to know if you can keep an open mind, consider the entire full range of punishment, whatever that may be, and under the proper set of circumstances, if they do exist and you feel they exist, that you could return that verdict. And that's in essence what they're asking. 107 JUROR PFEFFER: Indirectly, I guess I would have to say no. 108 THE COURT: You could not? 109 JUROR PFEFFER: I would have to say no then, to give you a yes or no answer. 110 THE COURT: Then, am I to believe by virtue of that answer that regardless of what the facts would reveal, regardless of how horrible the circumstances may be, that you would automatically vote against the imposition of the death penalty? 111 JUROR PFEFFER: As I say, I don't know. 112 THE COURT: Well, that's the question I have to have a yes or no to. 113 JUROR PFEFFER: Right. 114 THE COURT: And you're the only human being alive who knows, Mr. Pfeffer. 115 JUROR PFEFFER: Right, I understand. If I have to make a choice between yes and no, I would say that I couldn't make the judgment. 116 3 Trial Transcript at 882-84. Although Pfeffer interspersed his answers from this point on in his voir dire with caveats or qualifications such as those referred to above, there are at least two instances in which, if we focus on a specific question and answer, he gave unqualified answers: 117 THE COURT: You yourself are in such a frame of mind that regardless of how horrible the facts and circumstances are, that you would automatically vote against the imposition of the death penalty? Is that correct? 118 JUROR PFEFFER: Well, if it says a yes or no, I would have to say yes, I would automatically vote against, to give a correct answer. 119 THE COURT: You would vote against? 120 JUROR PFEFFER: Yes. 121 3 Trial Transcript at 884-85 (emphasis added). 122 Q. (By Mr. Harrison) Then, under no circumstances, Mr. Pfeffer, could you even think of voting or answering those questions if the result of those questions were to be to, in effect, give somebody the death penalty. Is that correct? 123 A. I think at the present time that's correct, yes. 124 Id. at 892. 125 In O'Bryan's view, while Pfeffer had reservations or mixed emotions about the death penalty, and while he was seriously concerned about his own ability to assess the death penalty, he was willing to do so in a very, very extreme set of circumstances. 8 If this were an accurate view, then Pfeffer's exclusion would have been improper. In Witherspoon, one of the venirewomen excluded stated that she would not 'like to be responsible for ... deciding somebody should be put to death.'  391 U.S. at 515, 88 S.Ct. at 1773. In the footnote accompanying this description of the juror's feelings, the Supreme Court cited, apparently with approval, a Mississippi case that reversed a trial court's exclusion of jurors who did not wish to decide whether a person should die: 126 The declaration of the rejected jurors, in this case, amounted only to a statement that they would not like ... a man to be hung. Few men would. Every right-thinking man would regard it as a painful duty to pronounce a verdict of death upon his fellow-man. 127 Id. at 515 n. 8, 88 S.Ct. at 1773 n. 8 (quoting Smith v. State, 55 Miss. 410, 413-14 (1887)); accord Burns, supra, 592 F.2d at 1299 n. 2. Witherspoon makes it clear that neither a deep reluctance to pronounce the death penalty, short of absolute refusal to do so, nor the reservation of the death penalty for only an extreme set of circumstances, is a ground for exclusion. 9 391 U.S. at 522 n. 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1777 n. 21. 128 A careful review of the transcript indicates that during the initial two-thirds of Pfeffer's voir dire, he did indeed suggest that he would be able, in an extreme set of circumstances, to assess the death penalty. At that point, however, Pfeffer's attitude, or at the very least, his answers, changed when he stated that if [he had] to make a choice between yes and no, 3 Trial Transcript at 884, he would have to say that he would automatically vote against imposition of the death penalty. We conclude that this case is controlled by our en banc decision in Williams v. Maggio, 679 F.2d 381 (5th Cir.1982) (en banc), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 103 S.Ct. 3553, 77 L.Ed.2d 1399 (1983). Juror Brou in Williams stated that there were certain cases where you read about them and they are so hideous that you just think, oh, the death penalty would be the only good outcome, 679 F.2d at 305, a statement similar to Pfeffer's statement that he could assess the death penalty in a very, very extreme set of circumstances. The prosecutor continued his probing, however, and in response to a leading question about Williams' particular case, Brou stated that she felt that she could not impose the death penalty: 129 Q. So you feel that you could not return the death penalty? 130 A. (Ms. Brou) No. Id. (emphasis in majority opinion). 10 131 Viewing Brou's initial uncertainty in conjunction with her ultimate response to the prosecutor's question about her ability to return the death penalty, the majority of this court concluded in Williams that the record of [Brou's] automatic opposition to the death penalty [was] established. Id. The en banc majority specifically rejected the contention that under Witherspoon exclusion of a venireman is impermissible unless he states in response to all questions that he absolutely refuses to consider the death penalty. 679 F.2d at 386 (emphasis added). It would seem that under Williams, it is the juror's ultimate conclusion about whether he or she is irrevocably opposed to the death penalty that is critical. Absent effective rehabilitation of the sort that we found lacking in defense counsel's questioning of Wells and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found present in Cuevas, a juror's ultimate statement of unequivocal opposition to the death penalty will justify his or her exclusion under the Williams court's interpretation of Witherspoon. 132 Pfeffer's unequivocal statement that he would automatically vote against the death penalty, 3 Trial Transcript at 885, was sufficient to justify his exclusion under Williams; his earlier statement that he could assess the death penalty in an extreme set of circumstances, his prolonged uncertainty and his caveats and qualifications preceding that unequivocal statement do not undercut the validity of that exclusion. The caveats and qualifications following that unequivocal statement do not amount to the kind of effective rehabilitation of Pfeffer that would be necessary for us to hold that his exclusion was error. 133 O'Bryan suggests that Pfeffer's ultimate statements do not accurately reflect Pfeffer's position. O'Bryan contends that the trial judge mistakenly viewed Witherspoon as an exclusionary rule, 11 and that the judge was unwilling to accept Pfeffer's deep, agonized reluctance to pronounce the death penalty. The defendant maintains that the trial court, in effect, coerced Pfeffer into taking a position that he would automatically vote against the imposition of the death penalty regardless of the facts established at trial. Our review of the entire voir dire, encompassing seven volumes of the trial record, indicates that the trial judge did not generally view Witherspoon as an exclusionary rule. Instead, he painstakingly questioned, and permitted counsel to question, each and every juror who expressed discomfort about imposing the death penalty, excluding some for cause but refusing to exclude others, thereby forcing the State to exercise its peremptory challenges. 134 We cannot say that the court's probing of Pfeffer's answers in an attempt to find some basis on which to evaluate his true feelings was improper. Throughout the voir dire, Pfeffer continued to express concern about his ability to pronounce the death penalty. The trial judge may have thought that Pfeffer's professed willingness to assess the death penalty in a very, very extreme set of circumstances was a smoke screen for what was really an inability to assess the death penalty under any circumstance. Under this view, we would have to say that a trial judge, harboring those suspicions about the person in front of him or her, has the right, within certain limitations, to pursue a line of questioning designed to flush out the venireman's true views. Indeed, an appellate court confronted with the question whether such an exclusion was proper, and with the apparent necessity of making an independent review based on the cold record, will expect no less. The trial court in this case succeeded in obtaining an answer from Pfeffer that he could not impose the death penalty. Under these circumstances, we cannot say that Pfeffer's exclusion was improper. Williams, supra. 135