Court Opinion

ID: 9762356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:20:54.584968+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:33.699626
License: Public Domain

VAN der VOORT, Judge,
dissenting:
This was a jury trial in which the defendant was found guilty of robbery, theft by unlawful taking and possessing an instrument of crime. The majority grants a new trial because the trial judge ruled that the defendant was not entitled to question the prospective jurors as to their possible prejudice against black persons. Not in every case is a black person who is charged with crime entitled to question prospective jurors as to whether or not they are prejudiced against such person because of his race. When the case is race-sensitive and there is a likelihood that prejudice because of race might infect the trial, then a defendant is entitled to have inquiry made as to the impartiality of prospective jurors. Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. 589, 96 S.Ct. 1017, 47 L.Ed.2d 258 (1976). The majority relies in important measure on the ruling in Commonwealth v. Christian, 480 Pa. 131, 389 A.2d 545 (1978), in which case there were problems of racial sensitivity. The defendant was charged with murder, burglary, rape and deviate sexual intercourse. Intimate physical contact was shown by the Commonwealth’s evidence. The defendant was black, the victim white. The prosecution showed that the defendant made sexual advances to another white woman prior to the killing of the victim. In the instant case, there was no intimate *294physical contact.1 The instant case, in my judgment, is not race-sensitive. There is no likelihood that racial bias or prejudice might infect the trial. In my judgment, the trial judge was properly within his discretion in ruling that the defendant was not entitled to ask veniremen questions about whether or not they were prejudiced against blacks.
I respectfully dissent and would affirm the judgment of sentence of the trial court.

. There was a struggle over disposition of the money ($520) as the defendant wrested the money from the operator of the service station.