Court Opinion

ID: 9631402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:37:04.303813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:18.828641
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion by WILNER, J.
I concur in the Court’s opinion because I agree that it would be a departure from our existing case law to find error in the Court’s refusal to pose the question at issue here. I do think, however, that the Court should consider, prospectively, a different approach, one on which we have already embarked.
In State v. Thomas, 369 Md. 202, 798 A.2d 566 (2002), we concluded that the public had such strong feelings about narcotics violations that it was necessary for a trial judge, on request, to question prospective jurors regarding their views *614about drug crimes. In Sweet v. State, 371 Md. 1, 806 A.2d 265 (2002), we reached a similar conclusion with respect to crimes involving the sexual abuse of a minor. It is obviously not reasonable to presume that those are the only kinds of crimes about which public emotion may run high. Surely, there are others. Having found that those kinds of criminal activity may so enrage prospective jurors as to require specific voir dire questions to ferret out possible bias, what standard will the Court use to distinguish one crime from another?
We have essentially taken judicial notice that some people may have particularly strong feelings about narcotics crimes. Is it not equally likely that some will have the same strong feelings about other crimes—burglary, robbery, rape, arson, not to mention murder. Some may be incensed over gambling or prostitution, or wanton, vicious assault, or cruelty to animals, or fraud. If the question is phrased as here—whether the prospective juror has such strong feelings about the crime as to make it difficult (or impossible) to weigh the facts fairly—what difference does it make what the crime is?
I do not believe in the kind of open-ended voir dire that we see in other States. I agree it should remain limited to discovering grounds that would support a challenge for cause and not be expanded to aid in the exercise of peremptory challenges. I fail to see how any kind of detailed line-drawing will work, however—how a question aimed at Crime A is required but not a question aimed at Crime B. In the great majority of cases, it would not unduly delay trial to ask whether the jurors have such a bias regarding the crime or crimes actually charged. Few jurors, I expect, will truthfully respond in the affirmative, and, to the extent they do, a few follow-up questions by the court will serve precisely the function of voir dire that we have traditionally blessed.
I would prefer to do this by Rule rather than by judicial decision. It would give us the opportunity to frame an acceptable (not necessarily a mandated) form of question going to bias emanating from the nature of the crime and put *615the question in the Rules, where it would be more likely to be seen than in one opinion of the Court.