Court Opinion

ID: 9621309
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:56:27.01556+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:02.428739
License: Public Domain

Concurring opinion by
Justice ROACH.
I agree with the result reached in the Opinion of the Court, but I write separately because I believe that the discussion of Thomas v. Commonwealth, 864 S.W.2d 252 (Ky.1993), and the historic treatment of this issue deserve further attention. Thomas overruled Turpin v. Commonwealth, 780 S.W.2d 619 (Ky.1989), and Dunbar v. Commonwealth, 809 S.W.2d 852 (Ky.1991), and proclaimed that Turpin and Dunbar were “premised on a misunderstanding of the United States Supreme Court decision in Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80 (1988).” Thomas, 864 S.W.2d at 259. This conclusion was simply incorrect.
In the context of the right to an impartial jury as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court noted in Ross that it had “long recognized that peremptory challenges are not of constitutional dimension.” Ross, 487 U.S. at 88, 108 S.Ct. at 2278 (emphasis added). More recently, the Court has reiterated and amplified this point:
The peremptory challenge is part of our common-law heritage. Its use in felony trials was already venerable in Blackstone’s time. See 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 346-348 (1769). We have long recognized the role of the peremptory challenge in reinforcing a defendant’s right to trial by an impartial jury. See, e.g., Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 212-213, 218-219, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965); Pointer v. United States, 151 U.S. 396, 408, 14 S.Ct. 410, 38 L.Ed. 208 (1894). But we have long recognized, as well, that such challenges are auxiliary; unlike the right to an impartial jury guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, peremptory challenges are not of federal constitutional dimension. Ross, 487 U.S., at 88, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80; see Stilson v. United States, 250 U.S. 583, 586, 40 S.Ct. 28, 63 L.Ed. 1154 (1919) (“There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States which requires the Congress to grant peremptory challenges.”).
United States v. Martinez-Salazar, 528 U.S. 304, 311, 120 S.Ct. 774, 779, 145 L.Ed.2d 792 (2000). Rather than rising to the level of a Constitutional right, peremptory challenges are merely a means to secure another right, namely that of an impartial jury. Ross, 487 U.S. at 88, 108 S.Ct. at 2278 (“They are a means to achieve the end of an impartial jury. So long as the jury.that sits is impartial, the fact that a defendant had to use a peremptory challenge to achieve that result does not mean the Sixth Amendment was violated.”). It is clear that the defendant in Thomas, much like the defendant in this case, was not deprived of the right to an impartial jury.
This Court side-stepped this issue in Thomas by explaining that the relevant issue was a “ ‘due process’ question” rather than an “ ‘impartial jury’ question” and concluded by noting that Ross v. Oklahoma recognized this due process question and “Turpin and Dunbar, misapplying Ross v. Oklahoma, do not.” Thomas, 864 S.W.2d at 260. Because peremptory challenges are not a right granted by the United States Constitution, however, the *117due process question turns only on whether the defendant received what he was entitled to under state law. Ross, 487 U.S. at 90-91, 108 S.Ct. at 2279-80.
Therefore, the sole question before this Court on this issue is whether Kentucky law mandates the result dictated in Thomas by elevating peremptory challenges to the level of a substantial right. I agree with Justice Keller when he noted that he could “find no support for it in the Kentucky Constitution.” Stopher v. Commonwealth, 57 S.W.3d 787, 816 (Ky.2001) (Keller, J., dissenting). The dissent claims that “we and our predecessor court have always deemed the right to peremptory challenges to be a substantial right, ie., one to which a party is clearly entitled and the erroneous denial of which cannot be deemed harmless for purposes of our harmless error and palpable error rules.” Post at 123. The dissent itself demonstrates that this characterization is inaccurate. First, as noted above, from the Turpin decision in 1989 until Thomas was decided, Kentucky did not employ the “per se reversible” rule. Second, the dissent admits that from 1870 until 1935 this Court did not review challenges to the panel for cause. Therefore, the issue before us today would have never been before our predecessor court during that time frame.
Moreover, many of the cases relied upon by the dissent concern the denial of the actual number of peremptory challenges to which a defendant is entitled to under the applicable rules. See, e.g., Pendly v. Illinois Central R.R. Co., 28 Ky.L.Rptr. 1324, 92 S.W. 1, 2 (1906); Pryor v. Commonwealth, 32 Ky. (2 Dana) 298 (1834). But there is a distinction between the denial of the right to use one’s peremptory challenges under the rules and the so-called “impairment” of this right by the erroneous failure to strike a juror for cause. Denial of a right to the number of peremptory challenges, say six instead of the eight granted by RCr 9.40(1) in a felony prosecution, is literally a denial of what is allowed by Kentucky law. Such a defendant is precluded from exercising his full complement of peremptory challenges. On the other hand, the “impairment” of the right, if such can really be said to exist, is not a denial or misallocation of peremptory challenges. Consider, for example, a felony criminal defendant who uses two peremptory challenges to strike jurors who should have been struck for cause and uses the other six in an arbitrary manner. Such a defendant has exercised eight peremptory challenges, which is all he is allowed under RCr 9.40a).1
Many of the authorities relied upon by the dissent recognize this distinction, and the distinction is well-grounded in our own law. After all, Section 334 of the Criminal Code of Practice mandated that a conviction of a felony could only be reversed for four grounds, one of which was an “error in allowing or disallowing a peremptory challenge.” This error did not include the erroneous failure to strike a juror for cause. See, e.g., Moore v. Commonwealth, 70 Ky. (7 Bush) 191 (1870). As our predecessor court explained:
It is conceded by counsel for defendant ⅛ their brief, and in oral argument of the case before this court, that under section 281 of the Criminal Code we have held, in cases innumerable, that it denied to a defendant in a criminal prosecution the right to appeal from the *118decisions of the trial court “upon challenges to the panel, and for cause.” We suppose that it would be no exaggeration to say that, since the adoption of the Criminal Code, with that section in it, we have upheld and applied it in at least 100 cases, and consequently have declined to review the decisions and rulings of the trial court in criminal prosecutions upon questions touching the impaneling of the jury and challenges to prospective jurymen. We so held, in the great number of cases coming before us, upon the all-sufficient ground that by the express terms of that section the defendant was denied the right to appeal from the decision of the trial court upon those matters.
Lake v. Commonwealth, 209 Ky. 832, 273 S.W. 511, 512 (1925).
Therefore, I agree with the dissent that “our courts have consistently held that a denial or misallocation of peremptory challenges, when properly preserved, is per se reversible error.” Post at 137. See also cases cited by dissent on pages 136-37. However, this specific issue is not before the Court. There is no allegation that there was a misallocation of peremptory strikes, e.g., where one party receives more than the other, or a denial of peremptory strikes, e.g., where a party is given less peremptory strikes than allowed by the statute.
More importantly, however, I think that the dissent’s claim that Kentucky law has always applied a per se reversal rule is simply incorrect. As discussed above, there were at least two periods, one quite recent, where we did not apply the per se rule. And despite the dissent’s claim to the contrary, it is far from clear that we applied the per se reversal rule in the years leading up to the Turpin decision. While it is true that many of the cases, beginning with Tate v. Commonwealth, 258 Ky. 685, 80 S.W.2d 817 (1935), contain language that refers to a defendant’s failure to exercise all of his peremptory challenges, none of those early cases articulate a per se reversal rule. In Tate, the Court was addressing whether the defendant was entitled to a change of venue. The Court concluded that the defendant had failed to provide grounds for reversal, noting in part: “Moreover, it nowhere appears that any one on the jury list who had read the newspaper accounts of the homicide was eventually accepted on the jury, or that defendant was compelled to accept any such one because of having exhausted his peremptory challenge.” Id. at 820. This is not even a complete articulation of the rule urged by the dissent. And it would appear that Tate requires that an objectionable juror sat on the jury. Moreover, this single line of dicta, which serves as the foundation of the “rule” advanced by the dissent, appears without any supporting reasoning or citation. It was, at best, a truism thrown in as an alternative ground for affirming the conviction.
The other cases relied upon by the dissent contain little more than a restatement of this truism. See, e.g., Messer v. Commonwealth, 297 Ky. 772, 775, 181 S.W.2d 438, 440 (Ky.1944); Jones v. Commonwealth, 281 S.W.2d 920, 925 (Ky.1955); Lefevers v. Commonwealth, 558 S.W.2d 585, 588 (Ky.1977); Smith v. Commonwealth, 734 S.W.2d 437, 444 (Ky.1987); Derossett v. Commonwealth, 867 S.W.2d 195, 197 (Ky.1993). In fact, some of these cases contain rather ambiguous language. For example, in Lefevers, after noting that the defendant had five remaining peremptory strikes, the court stated:
In Rigsby v. Commonwealth, Ky., 495 S.W.2d 795 (1973), we said:
“Appellants complain of an abuse of discretion by the trial court in refusing certain challenges for cause. *119The argument is unavailing because nowhere do appellants assert they were forced to exhaust their peremptory challenges, nor does examination of the record reveal such circumstance. All the jurors in question were removed by way of peremptory challenges. A defendant who fails to exhaust such challenges cannot complain concerning the jury selection. Certainly if the biased juror is not impanelled, no prejudice can result. There has been no showing that use of the eleven peremptories to dispose of the suspect jurors resulted in a subsequent inability to challenge additional unacceptable veniremen. Therefore, favorable consideration may not be given to appellants’ assertions.”

It appears that not only were the jurors who expressed bias not impaneled, but appellant had five remaining unused challenges. No prejudice resulted to the appellant.

Lefevers, 558 S.W.2d at 588 (emphasis added). Other cases relied upon by the dissent present situations where the juror who should have been struck for cause actually served on the jury after the defendant exhausted their peremptory strikes. See, e.g., Tayloe v. Commonwealth, 335 S.W.2d 556, 557 (Ky.1960); Brumfield v. Commonwealth, 374 S.W.2d 499, 500 (Ky.1964); Marsch v. Commonwealth, 743 S.W.2d 830, 831 (Ky.1987).
These cases fall far short of presenting a consistent rule. Before the Thomas decision, the per se reversal rule urged by the dissent was, at most, hinted at — full realization and application of the rule from those cases requires a good bit of inference. In fact, I have been unable to find any Kentucky case, except for Dunbar, Turpin, and Thomas, that contains a substantive analysis of the specific issue before this Court. And those cases, coming soon after the Ross decision, focused on claims about federal constitutional rights. But again, the real inquiry is what is provided by Kentucky law — the earlier emphasis on the effect of Ross and whether peremptory challenges implicated due process were red herrings. Since our cases from 1933 until Thomas failed to present a consistent or compelling rule, I believe it is appropriate for us to revisit the issue.
The dissent discusses several alleged errors that simply are not claimed in this case and attempts to impute holdings and theories that I for one do not believe are necessarily part of our holding. For example, the dissent claims that the majority opinion would deem an uneven allotment of peremptory challenges, that is, in direct contravention of the rule, as harmless error. No part of the majority opinion makes this holding. And, as I discuss above, there is a clear difference between such a claim of error and the one actually presented in this case.
The dissent also attempts to claim that the current trend in American law is toward the per se reversal rule. But the clear weight of authority across the United States rejects this view. By my count, twenty-six states have unequivocally rejected the per se reversal rule. See Dailey v. State, 828 So.2d 340, 343-44 (Ala.2001); Minch v. State, 934 P.2d 764, 769-70 (Alaska Ct.App.1997); State v. Hickman, 205 Ariz. 192, 68 P.3d 418, 427 (2003); Bangs v. State, 338 Ark. 515, 998 S.W.2d 738, 744-45 (1999); State v. Pelletier, 209 Conn. 564, 552 A.2d 805, 810 (1989); Manley v. State, 709 A.2d 643, 655-56 n. 15 (Del.1998); State v. Ramos, 119 Idaho 568, 808 P.2d 1313, 1315 (1991); Dye v. State, 717 N.E.2d 5, 18 n. 13 (Ind.1999); State v. Neuendorf, 509 N.W.2d 743, 747 (Iowa1993); State v. Manning, 270 Kan. 674, 19 P.3d 84, 97-98 (2001); People v. Bell, 473 *120Mich. 275, 702 N.W.2d 128, 138 (2005); State v. Anderson, 603 N.W.2d 354, 356 (Minn.Ct.App.1999) (citing State v. Stufflebean, 329 N.W.2d 314, 317 (Minn.1983)); Johnson v. State, 754 So.2d 576, 578 (Miss.Ct.App.2000); State v. Storey, 40 S.W.3d 898, 904-05 (Mo.2001); State v. Quintana, 261 Neb. 38, 621 N.W.2d 121, 134 (2001); Blake v. State, 121 P.3d 567, 578 (Nev.2005); State v. DiFrisco, 137 N.J. 434, 645 A.2d 734, 751-53 (1994); State v. Entzi, 615 N.W.2d 145, 149 (N.D.2000); State v. Barone, 328 Or. 68, 969 P.2d 1013, 1018-19 (1998); Green v. Maynard, 349 S.C. 535, 564 S.E.2d 83, 86 (2002); State v. Verhoef, 627 N.W.2d 437, 441-42 (S.D.2001); State v. Thompson, 768 S.W.2d 239, 246 (Tenn.1989); State v. Menzies, 889 P.2d 393, 399-400 (Utah 1994); State v. Fire, 145 Wash.2d 152, 34 P.3d 1218, 1225 (2001); State v. Lindell, 245 Wis.2d 689, 629 N.W.2d 223, 246 (2001); Klahn v. State, 96 P.3d 472, 483-84 (Wyo.2004). In addition, some of the states listed above have overturned long-standing precedent after Ross and Martinez-Salazar. See, e.g., State v. Neuendorf 509 N.W.2d 743, 746-47 (Iowa1993)(abandoning forty years of precedent); State v. Fire, 145 Wash.2d 152, 34 P.3d 1218, 1222-23 (2001)(overruling a case decided in 1902).
In fact, the view articulated by the dissent is an extreme minority position. At least one of the states that the dissent characterizes as retaining the per se reversal rule actually describes the rule as one of “harmful error” and imposes stringent procedural requirements in order to receive the benefit of the rule. See, e.g., McBean v. State, 167 S.W.3d 334, 338 (Tex.App.-Amarillo 2004) (“[W]hen a challenge for cause is erroneously denied and the challenging party uses a peremptory challenge to strike the disqualified venire-member, then the erroneous denial may be harmful error because the challenging party has effectively received fewer peremptory challenges than provided by statute. In such a circumstance the aggrieved party has suffered harmful error if the party (1) used a peremptory challenge to strike the challenged, disqualified veniremember; (2) exhausted all remaining peremptory challenges; (3) requested and was denied an additional peremptory challenge, and (4) identified a specific veniremember who would have been removed with the additional challenge, and who thereafter sat as a juror.”(citation omitted). And two of the states that the dissent cites effectively require an affirmative showing of prejudice since they require an objectionable juror to have sat on the jury before reversal will be granted. See Busby v. State, 894 So.2d 88, 96-97 (Fla.2004)(explaining that “expenditure of a peremptory challenge to cure the trial court’s improper denial of a cause challenge constitutes reversible error if a defendant exhausts all remaining peremptory challenges and can show that an objectionable juror has served on the jury.”); Hanson v. State, 72 P.3d 40, 49 (Okla.Crim.App.2003) (“In order to show he was prejudiced by this error, Hanson must show that his peremptory challenges were reduced so he was forced, over objection, to keep an unacceptable juror.”)).
In addition, the dissent’s reliance on State v. McLean, 815 A.2d 799 (Me.2002) and Whitney v. State, 158 Md.App. 519, 857 A.2d 625 (2004) is misguided. Both of these cases concern the denial of the proper number of peremptory strikes and do not address the issue before this Court. These are claims of denial or misallocation of peremptory challenges. And again, such cases present a different issue than the one currently before the Court.
In the final analysis, it appears that only six states — Colorado, Georgia, Louisiana, Montana, New York and Virginia — follow the dissent’s postion. This hardly constitutes a nationwide trend.
*121Interestingly, although the dissent appears to have relied heavily on Professor Pizzi and Judge Hoffman for its historical overview, see William T. Pizzi & Morris B. Hoffman, Jury Selection Errors on Appeal, 38 Am.Crim. L.Rev. 1391, 1406-18 (2001) (similarly recounting the history of peremptory challenges), it fails to discuss their conclusions concerning harmless error. They offer six hypothetical scenarios involving peremptory challenges. One of their hypotheticals, “scenario 3”, is the identical situation before us in this matter: “The trial court erroneously denies a defense challenge for cause, the defendant exhausts all his or her peremptory challenges, and the defendant uses one of the peremptory challenges on the erroneously retained juror.” Id. at 1429. Professor Prizi and Judge Hoffman then note that there simply is no error in such a situation:
Notwithstanding that Scenario 1, 2, 3 and 5 errors are in fact “errors,” we nevertheless contend that the general rule in each of these four scenarios should be that the jury selection error is harmless and that the convictions must be affirmed. In each of these scenarios, no demonstrably biased prospective jurors end up sitting on the jury, so none of the scenarios involves any violation of a defendant’s right to an impartial jury under the Sixth Amendment. In other words, all the jurors who actually sit in a Scenario 1, 2, 3 or 5 case were properly passed for cause.
The only effect of a Scenario 1, 2, 3 or 5 error is an imbalance in peremptory challenges. Is this really the kind of error, and really the kind of “right,” that justifies reversing otherwise perfectly valid convictions returned by perfectly impartial jurors? The answer must be no. This error is not constitutional, is not structural and is harmless by any measure of that inquiry.
Scenario 1, 2, 3, and 5 error is certainly not constitutional error. Because a criminal defendant has no right to any peremptory challenges, it is difficult to understand how an imbalance in peremptory challenges could rise to the level of constitutional error. Legislatures and supreme courts could abolish all peremptory challenges tomorrow without inflicting constitutional injury on criminal defendants. They could probably even eliminate all defense peremptory challenges and retain all prosecution peremptory challenges. A trial court’s unintentional elimination of a single defense peremptory challenge likewise inflicts no constitutional injury.
Id. at 1431-32 (footnotes omitted).
Professor Pizzi and Judge Hoffman further explain:
Moreover, since Chapman and Fulminante, it is also clear that Scenario 1, 2, 3 and 5 errors are not structural errors and are therefore subject to harmless error review, even if by some stretch of the imagination we might label them “constitutional” errors. An error is no longer structural just because it is constitutional error or because it involves some other especially important right, or even just because its impacts may be difficult to gauge. The inquiry is reliability. How can it be said that the reliability of a trial is likely to be compromised when a defendant loses a single peremptory challenge, but when all the jurors who actually hear the case are fair and impartial? It cannot. By any sensible measure of “structural error,” and certainly by the Court’s increasingly strict measures, jury selection error of this sort is not “structural.”
This brings us to the harmless error inquiry. If ever there were a category of errors that borders on “harmless as a matter of law,” it is the errors in Scenar*122ios 1, 2, 3 and 5. The juries in these Scenarios were vetted for cause, and all of them were, by definition, fair and impartial. Yet they returned convictions. By any measure of harmlessness, depriving a defendant of a single peremptory challenge will surely be harmless in most if not all cases.
The uniqueness of jury selection errors is that by their very nature they offer no resistance to the evidentiary or instructional counterweights we typically place on the scales of harmlessness. Ordinarily, the harmless error inquiry requires an appellate court to ask whether the same jury would have reached the same result with different evidence or different instructions. However, under these scenarios, an impartial jury has already determined, based on all the evidence and the instructions of law, that the prosecution has proved defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury selection errors in Scenarios 1, 2, 3 and 5 require appellate courts to ask whether a different but equally impartial jury would have reached the same result with the same evidence and the same instructions. The very foundations upon which our system is built — that cases are decided based on the law and the evidence, and not on the peccadilloes of the fact-finders — will almost always require us to conclude that such errors are harmless.
Id. at 1432-33 (footnotes omitted).
There are also other compelling policy arguments against retaining a per se reversal rule. After Martinez-Salazar was issued, the Wisconsin Supreme Court conducted an analysis of its own peremptory challenge law in State v. Lindell, 245 Wis.2d 689, 629 N.W.2d 223 (2001), and reversed that state’s long-standing per se error position in light of Ross and Martinez-Salazar. The Wisconsin Supreme Court analyzed Martinez-Salazar at length and also considered other states’ treatment of the issue. In fact, the court cited to Justice Keller’s dissent in Stopher. After analyzing the applicable federal and state decisions at length, Wisconsin’s high court stated that the per se error rule meant that
whenever two members of the court of appeals or four members of the supreme court make a different call on bias than the circuit court, the automatic result is a new trial. This is the rule notwithstanding the absence of any deficiency in the first trial.
This puts the defendant in a “win-win” situation, as Justice Crooks explained in his Ramos dissent. If the circuit court erroneously fails to exclude a prospective juror who should be struck for cause, the defendant may take his or her chances and refuse to exercise a peremptory challenge, wait until the jury renders its verdict, appeal if he or she does not like the result, and then receive a new trial. On the other hand, the defendant may exercise a peremptory challenge and strike the prospective juror, then claim after a trial that produces a bad result that his or her due process was violated. The latter rule applies even though the defendant’s peremptory strike comes so quickly that the prosecutor has no chance to use a strike to correct the error. This sort of gamesmanship does not instill confidence in our system of justice.
Id. at 248-49 (paragraph numbering and citations omitted, emphasis added). This reasoning applies equally to Kentucky law. As Justice Keller noted, recognition of peremptory challenges as substantial rights “serves one function and one function only — it manufactures reversible error where the case has been decided by a fair *123and impartial jury.” Stopher, 57 S.W.3d at 814 (Keller, J., dissenting).
GRAVES, J., joins this concurring opinion.

. This, of course, assumes that the defendant’s situation calls only for eight peremptory challenges. Where the rules allow for more, e.g., when alternate jurors are called, RCr 9.40(2), the trial court's refusal to grant the extra peremptory challenges would fall under the former category of denied peremptory challenges.