Court Opinion

ID: 9759114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:06:18.356741+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:59.526028
License: Public Domain

BLACKMAR, Judge,
dissenting.
I believe that the challenge of venire-woman Delahanty for cause should have been sustained in accordance with the teaching of State v. Hopkins, 687 S.W.2d 188 (Mo. banc 1985).1 Hopkins was followed in State v. Holland, 719 S.W.2d 453 (Mo. banc 1986). The principal opinion departs from those holdings and sends the wrong signal to trial judges. It quotes two pages of voir dire examination in which the juror expressed doubt that she could be fair to the defendant. Her answers were such as to compel the defendant to expend a valuable peremptory challenge, without regard to rehabilitation. One purpose of voir dire, of course, is to obtain information which is helpful in exercising peremptory challenges, but we have repeatedly held that a defendant is entitled to a full panel of unbiased jurors from which to make his strikes.
The attempted rehabilitation consisted of three prolix leading questions by the prosecutor, one containing more than 100 words and another interrupted by colloquy. The answers hardly responded at all to the juror’s indication of prejudice as shown by her initial answers. The prosecutor was apparently anxious to retain a juror who seemed sympathetic to his cause.
When jurors give answers strongly indicative of bias, they should be excused. Pages of grilling cannot eliminate the initial demonstration such as this record shows. It is important that the trial have the appearance of fairness to the defendant and to those who are concerned for him. This trial does not have that appearance.
Just as Judge Welliver says, I wish the trial judge had not put us in our present position. The indication of prejudice is so strong that I am unwilling to defer to his decision. I would reverse and remand for a new trial.
I do not agree with the suggestion by Judge Donnelly, quoting Justice Marshall, that peremptory challenges should be eliminated from the criminal justice system. I have not tried a great many criminal cases on behalf of defendants but, in those that I did try, I felt that peremptory challenges were invaluable. I believe that experienced criminal practitioners agree. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S.-,-, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 1726-29, 90 L.Ed.2d 69, 91-95 (1986), certainly makes things more difficult for the prosecution and the court, but I do not believe that the abolition of the peremptory challenge is an appropriate solution.

. This case was tried before our Hopkins opinion was handed down.