Court Opinion

ID: 9789838
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:42:33.41712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:24.592580
License: Public Domain

STEWART, Associate Chief Justice, concurring:
I concur in Justice Howe’s opinion and write only to observe that there are, I believe, circumstances in which the cure-or-waive rule will not be adequate to assure the selection of a fair and impartial jury. Prior to Menzies, this Court struggled in a number of eases where trial courts made highly problematic rulings with respect to for-cause challenges by defense counsel, and this Court, being reluctant to overturn the conviction, stretched the law to the breaking point in seeking to justify the trial court’s ruling. In my view, it is absolutely imperative that trial judges once and for all realize that for cause challenges to jurors should be viewed liberally. As with judges, the issue is not only whether jurors are in fact biased but also whether they might be perceived as biased. Because of our past history in this area, I am simply not persuaded that this Court can entirely withdraw from the area of ruling on the validity of trial court for-cause rulings by shifting to defense counsel the obligation to cure a trial judge’s error by exercising a peremptory challenge or waive that error. I am not at this point prepared to state just when or how such a policy should be effected. I am satisfied, however, that the cure-or-waive rule is properly applied in this case.