Court Opinion

ID: 9752888
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:42:17.806469+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:24.616339
License: Public Domain

GARIBALDI, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the majority’s resolution of this case’s two dispositive issues. The trial court’s jury instruction on manslaughter impermissibly shifted to the defendant the burden of proving passion or provocation. See State v. Grunow, 102 N.J. 133, 506 A.2d 708 (1986). The trial court’s instruction on murder failed to force the jury to distinguish between knowingly or purposely causing death and knowingly or purposely causing serious bodily injury resulting in death. See State v. Gerald, 113 N.J. 40, 549 A.2d 792 (1988). Because the record would support a jury determination that passion or provocation was present or that Erazo only knowingly caused serious bodily injury that resulted in death, we cannot call those errors harmless. Defendant must be retried and resentenced.
I write separately to express my continuing reservations regarding the majority’s implication that inquiring into “a [prospective] juror’s attitude about a defendant’s prior murder conviction” is an indispensible part of a constitutionally adequate voir dire. Ante at 129, 594 A.2d at 241 (citing State v. Biegenwald, 126 N.J. 1, 28-29, 594 A.2d 172, 186). Although such a question may be an “appropriate subject” for voir dire *140inquiry, I would defer to the soundly exercised discretion of the trial judge in any given case. See State v. Biegenwald, 126 N.J. at 70, 594 A.2d at 208 (Garibaldi, J., dissenting). If mandated, such questions will “unravel much of the capital-sentencing jurisprudence we have painstakingly developed,” id. at 94, 594 A.2d at 223 (Garibaldi, J., dissenting), by limiting the discretion of trial courts to conduct a voir dire appropriate to an individual case and “ ‘not chained to any * * * artificial formula.’ ” Id. at 66, 594 A.2d at 206 (quoting United States v. Wood, 299 U.S. 123, 145-46, 57 S.Ct. 177, 185, 81 L.Ed. 78, 88 (1936)).
Whether, and to what extent, to pursue any inquiry on voir dire is within “the wide discretion granted to the trial court.” Mu’Min v. Virginia, — U.S.-,-, 111 S.Ct. 1899, 1906, 114 L.Ed.2d 493, 507 (1991); see also State v. Hunt, 115 N.J. 330, 357, 558 A.2d 1259 (1989) (leaving the conduct and content of voir dire to the “sound discretion” of trial courts). I agree with Justice Kennedy that “there is no single way to voir dire a juror, and I would not limit the trial judge’s wide discretion to determine the appropriate form and content of voir dire questioning.” Mu’Min v. Virginia, supra, — U.S. at-, 111 S.Ct. at 1919, 114 L.Ed.2d at 522 (Kennedy, J., dissenting) (noting that constitutionally-adequate voir dire of individual jurors can follow from either specific or general questions). Therefore, I would hesitate to embed any particular question as the sine qua non of a constitutionally-adequate voir dire.
I agree with the majority’s decision to remand the case, and would leave the content and conduct of voir dire questioning to the sound discretion of the trial court.