Court Opinion

ID: 9564603
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:04:05.046446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:33.396562
License: Public Domain

Justice PLEICONES:
I respectfully dissent. In my opinion, the Court’s decision in State v. Green, 301 S.C. 347, 392 S.E.2d 157 (1990), was a clear break from established precedent. See State v. Sanders, 103 S.C. 216, 88 S.E. 10 (1916). Neither State v. Plath, 277 S.C. 126, 284 S.E.2d 221 (1981), nor State v. Yates, 280 S.C. 29, 310 S.E.2d 805 (1982), hold that a defendant must show prejudice where he has used a peremptory challenge to remove an otherwise disqualified juror.7
In a case involving the issue of juror disqualification, decided after Plath and Yates, the Court reaffirmed the rule in State v. Sanders, supra. State v. Cooper, 291 S.C. 332, 353 S.E.2d 441 (1986). In Cooper, the defendant challenged the trial court’s refusal to disqualify a highway patrolman from the panel of jurors. In reversing the defendant’s conviction, the Court did not undertake a prejudice analysis. Instead, the Court only considered whether the defendant had exhausted all peremptory challenges and whether the trial court should have disqualified the patrolman for cause. I read Cooper as an affirmation of the two-part test in effect prior to *544Green. In my opinion Green was a clear break from that precedent.
I do not suggest that this Court cannot overrule a previous decision in any given ease. I am, however, of the opinion that when the Court chooses to do so, and when the change is a clear break from the law previously applied in a criminal prosecution, the new rule should not be applied to the detriment of the defendant in whose case the rule is changed. See e.g. State v. Hughes, 328 S.C. 146, 493 S.E.2d 821 (1997) (refusing to apply new rule overruling precedent to appellant’s detriment). Application of the new rule to Green, in a setting where the State seeks to extract the ultimate penalty is, in my opinion, shocking to the universal sense of justice. See Butler v. State, 302 S.C. 466, 397 S.E.2d 87 (1990) (writ of habeas corpus will issue where a violation, in the setting, constitutes denial of fundamental fairness shocking to universal sense of justice).
I would grant the petition for writ of habeas corpus.

. As pointed out by the majority, the defendant in Plath appealed the trial court’s refusal to allow the defendant to exercise a peremptory challenge after all the jurors had been presented and sworn. Yates addressed a defendant's challenge to the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s request for additional peremptory challenges after exhaustion of those allowed by statute. Neither decision addressed the issue of juror disqualification.