Court Opinion

ID: 9622402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:17:02.964476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:33.121977
License: Public Domain

KELLER, Justice,
concurring.
I concur with the majority and vote to reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate the trial court’s judgment. I write separately, however, as to Part I of the majority opinion because I do not agree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court correctly allocated the peremptory challenges authorized by CR 47.031 when it permitted the Smith Estate (“the Estate”) and Sand Hill Energy, Inc. (“Sand Hill”) to exercise a total of eight (8) peremptory challenges by allowing each party separately to exercise four (4) peremptory challenges. As the Estate and Sand Hill were neither opposing parties nor had interests antagonistic to each other, the trial court should have allocated them a total of four (4) peremptory challenges to be exercised jointly. Although I acknowledge that this Court has held that trial court error in the form of allowing excessive peremptory challenges constitutes reversible error without a showing of prejudice,2 I believe that belief is based on a fundamental mis-characterization of the entitlement to peremptory challenges, and I would review the error3 under CR 61.01. Ford Motor Company (“Ford”) has neither alleged, nor *498demonstrated, how it suffered prejudice from Sand Hill’s independent exercise of peremptory challenges, and I believe the trial court’s error neither was “inconsistent with substantial justice”4 nor “af-feet[ed] the substantial rights of’5 Ford. Accordingly, I concur in the result reached by the majority.
In large part, this Court has applied a rule of automatic reversal in civil cases when trial courts have erroneously awarded excessive peremptory challenges because the Court has labeled the exercise of such challenges as “substantial rights.”6 For reasons that I have articulated previously,7 I find that premise faulty — peremptory challenges are not substantial rights. I will not burden this dissent by restating my position, however, because even if I accept — for the sake of argument, of course — the premise that the entitlement to exercise peremptory challenges constitutes a “substantial right,” I would reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals because the trial court’s error in this case did not affect Ford’s power to exercise peremptory challenges. This Court’s prior opinions that have presumed prejudice in cases such as this have simply adopted the reasoning from other, analytically distinct, cases in which a litigant was arguably denied the entitlement to exercise the peremptory challenges authorized by court rule.8 Harmless error review is, in my view, certainly appropriate in cases, such as this one, where the trial court’s error in the allocation of peremptory challenges does not prevent a party from exercising the number of peremptory challenges authorized by the rules but rather merely allows a party or parties to exercise an excessive number of such challenges.
*499We must remember that, “[t]he right of peremptory challenge is not of itself a right to select, but a right to reject jurors.”9 In this ease, CR 47.03 entitled Ford to remove four (4) jurors by peremptory challenge. It is undisputed that Ford did so, and, as such, Ford was fully afforded the “substantial right” afforded to it by CR 47.03. The trial court’s erroneous decision to allow the Estate and Sand Hill to exercise a total of eight (8) peremptory challenges did not affect Ford’s entitlement to excuse four (4) jurors. The contention that Sand Hill’s exercise of peremptory challenges may have affected the composition of the jury that tried the case10 erroneously characterizes the nature of the entitlement to peremptory challenge:
The right, therefore, of challenge, does not necessarily draw after it the right of selection, but merely of exclusion. It enables the [litigant] to say who shall not try him; but not to say who shall be the particular jurors to try him. The law presumes, that every juror sworn in the case is indifferent and above legal exception: for otherwise he may be challenged for cause. What jurors, in particular, shall try the cause, depends on the order in which they are called; and the result is a mere incident following the challenges, and not the absolute selection of the [litigant] resulting from his power of challenge.11
Our civil rules entitled Ford to remove four (4) jurors by peremptory challenge, but gave Ford no right, substantial or otherwise, to have the case tried by any particular twelve (12) jurors. Accordingly, this Court should review the error in this *500case- — one that permitted the Estate and Sand Hill to exercise excessive peremptory challenges, but did not restrict Ford’s right to exercise the peremptory challenges authorized by CR 47.03 — to determine whether Ford was prejudiced by the improper allocation. CR 61.01 contains no separate rule of “presumed prejudice” for trial court errors involving the allocation of peremptory challenges, and instead states:
[NJo error or defect in any ruling or order or in anything done or omitted by the court or by any of the parties is ground for granting a new trial or setting aside a verdict or for vacating, modifying, or otherwise disturbing a judgment or order, unless refusal to take such action appears to the court inconsistent with substantial justice. The court at every stage of the proceeding must disregard any error or defect in the proceeding which does no affect the substantial rights of the parties.12
While Justice Cooper’s dissenting opinion argues that harmless error review is inappropriate for errors in the allocation of peremptory challenges because such errors implicate a party’s constitutional rights and because of the difficulty of demonstrating prejudice, neither argument provides a basis for this Court to ignore the plain terms of CR 61.01. First, even if we overlook the complete dearth of authority to support Justice Cooper’s novel suggestion that the United States Constitution requires a rule of automatic reversal in cases where a trial court improperly allocates peremptory challenges, the fact remains that “even errors of a constitutional magnitude may be held harmless.”13 Secondly, I find it ironic that Justice Cooper’s dissenting opinion references the will-o’the-wisp because it is his allegation of unprovable prejudice that constitutes an illusion that misleads the relevant inquiry. The suggestion that reversal is required whenever a trial court erroneously allocates peremptory challenges simply “elevates form over substance and detracts from the true question of whether the trial court seated a fair and impartial jury.”14
Here, the trial court’s error does not justify reversal because the case was tried before a fair and impartial jury:
Where a disqualified juror is put on a jury, it is of course error; but, where a qualified juror is improperly rejected, it is a wholly different thing. In such case the man taking his place is qualified and unexceptionable. Is he not as good a juror as the excluded one? Has not the party had what the law designs — a trial by an impartial jury? If you set aside the verdict, upon a. new trial he cannot get that rejected man. Is that man better than all the balance of the citizens of the State qualified for jury service? Shall a long, costly trial be upturned for such a cause only to give the party what he has already had — a fair jury? Is the administration of justice to bear the odium of such technicality?15
I believe Kentucky should join the ranks of those jurisdictions that require a showing of prejudice before reversing a jury verdict when a trial court erroneously allocates peremptory challenges,16 because I *501believe it is a mistake for this Court to presume prejudice from an undisputably harmless technical violation. “[T]he law is concerned ... with the fairness of the trial and the impartiality of the jurors [rather] than with the particular jurors who compose the jury and render the verdict[ ],”17 and while it has been said that “[t]he purpose of the peremptory challenges is to afford parties a fair trial on the issues to be tried,”18 it is a party’s right to make unlimited challenges for cause, that, both in theory and in practice, secures a fair trial by removing from consideration of the case those jurors that cannot be fair and impartial.
For the reasons stated, I find that the granting of the excessive peremptory challenges in this case constituted harmless error. Accordingly, I concur in the result reached by the majority.

. CR 47.03(l)-(2):
(1) In civil cases each opposing side shall have three peremptory challenges, but co-parties having antagonistic interests shall have three peremptory challenges each.
(2) If one or two additional jurors are called, the number of peremptory challenges for each side and antagonistic co-party shall be increased by one.

. Bowling Green Municipal Utilities v. Atmos Energy Corp., Ky., 989 S.W.2d 577, 580 (1999) ("Violations of CR 47.03, in order to be subject to appellate reversal, need not show actual prejudice. A simple violation suffices.”); Kentucky Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Cook, Ky., 590 S.W.2d 875, 877 (1970). See also Davenport v. Ephraim McDowell Mem. Hosp., Ky.App. 769 S.W.2d 56, 59 (1989).

.Although I am somewhat amazed and dismayed that I must do so, I emphasize that the trial court's improper allocation of peremptory challenges was simply an error — not, as caustically implied by the dissenting opinion, part of a conscious attempt by the Kentucky courts to take from the rich and give to the poor a la Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men.

. CR 61.01.

. Id.

. Bowling Green Municipal Utilities v. Atmos Energy Corp., supra note 2 at 580 ("[S]ince this Court has elevated the provision of CR 47.03 to the level of being a substantive right, we must declare the actions of the trial court to be reversible error[.]” (emphasis added)); Kentucky Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co. v. Cook, supra note 2 at 877 ("As long as they are retained as part of the trial process, however, we believe that their proper allocation between litigants is a substantial right which so pervades the process that its erroneous application requires reversal as a matter of law if the issue is properly preserved by the adversely affected litigant.” (emphasis added)) Thomas v. Commonwealth., Ky., 864 S.W.2d 252, 259 (1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1177, 114 S.Ct. 1218, 127 L.Ed.2d 564 (1994) ("The rules specifying the number of peremptory challenges are not mere technicalities, they are substantial rights and are to be fully enforced.” (emphasis added)); Olympic Realty Co. v. Kamer, 283 Ky. 432, 141 S.W.2d 293, 297 (1940) ("[T]he right to challenge a given number of jurors without showing cause is one of the most important rights to a litigant; any system for the empaneling of a jury that prevents or embarrasses the full, unrestricted exercise of the right of challenge must be condemned; ...; the terms of the statutes with reference to peremptory challenges are substantial rather than technical!.]” (emphasis added)).

. Stopher v. Commonwealth, Ky., 57 S.W.3d 787, 813-817 (2001) (Keller, J. dissenting). As to Justice Cooper’s insinuation of inconsistency, see Gamble v. Commonwealth, Ky., 68 S.W.3d 367, 374-5 (2002) (Keller, J„ dissenting) ("Although, [in Stopher ], I expressed my intention to follow this Court's precedent until a majority of the Court elects to adopt my view, I now realize that I cannot fulfill my oath of office by closing my eyes, reversing a jury verdict that resulted from a fair trial, and remanding the case for another fair trial.” (footnote omitted)).

. See Thomas v. Commonwealth, supra note 6 (holding that a defendant was denied the number of peremptory challenges procedurally allocated to him when forced to use peremptory challenges on jurors who should have been excused for cause); Olympic Realty Co. v. Kampr, supra note 6 (holding that the right to exercise peremptory challenges was compromised when a juror gave false information during voir dire).

.United. States v. Marchant & Colson, 25 U.S. 480 at 482, 6 L.Ed. 700, 12 Wheat. 480 (1827) (emphasis added). The contrary authority cited by Justice Cooper in his dissenting opinion, Williams v. Pichará, 150 Fla. 371, 7 So.2d 468 (1942), appears to adopt a different line of reasoning in conflict with the views of the United States Supreme Court. However, even the Florida courts have subsequently rejected this reasoning. See Bailey v. Deverick, 142 So.2d 775 (Fla.App.1962), in which the Court held that changes in Florida's statute governing peremptory challenge deprived Williams v. Pichará of precedential effect. The Court then held:
Seldom, if ever, will excusal of a juror constitute reversible error for the parties are not entitled to have any particular juror serve. They are entitled to have only qualified jurors. No complaint is made here that the jurors who served were not qualified.
Under the general rule that error in a matter concerning a jury must be prejudicial to be reversible, the allowance of an excessive number of peremptory challenges is not a ground for a reversal of the judgment based upon the verdict rendered where it appears that the jury was impartial.
Id. at 777 (emphasis added and citations omitted). Although the Bailey v. Deverick court did not indicate it as a quotation, the first paragraph quoted above comes from Pic-cott v. State, 116 So.2d 626 (Fla. 1960), a Florida Supreme Court case rendered after Williams v. Pichará. In Howling v. Williams, 316 So.2d 547 (1975), the Florida Supreme Court quoted from Piccott v. State and cited Bailey v. Deverick with approval. Id. at 550.

. In this case, however, the trial court's jury selection procedure could have seated the exact same jury even if the trial court had properly required Estate and Sand Hill to exercise a total of four (4) peremptory challenges. The trial court narrowed the jury panel to thirty-two (32) jurors, see KRS 29A.060(2)(a), before allowing the parties to exercise a total of (12) peremptory challenges. The parties used their challenges to exclude twelve (12) distinct jurors, leaving twenty (20) jurors, and the trial court randomly excluded six (6) jurors before seating fourteen (14) jurors to try the case. The element of randomness prevents any generalizations about how changes in the allocation of peremptory challenges would change the composition of the jury actually seated.

. United States v. Marchant & Colson, supra note 9 (emphasis added).

. CR 61.01.

. Jackson v. Commonwealth, Ky.App., 717 S.W.2d 511, 514 (1986) (citing Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967)).

. Stopher v. Commonwealth, supra note 7 at 817 (Keller, J., dissenting).

. Thompson v. Douglass, 35 W.Va. 337, 13 S.E. 1015, 1016 (W.V.1891).

. See G.R. Jacobi, Annotation, Effect of Allowing Excessive Number of Peremptory Challenges, 95 A.L.R.2d 975 §§ 3 & 4 (1970).

. Stevens v. Union Railroad Co., 26 R.I. 90, 58 A. 492, 498-499 (1904).

. Penker Const. Co. v. Finley, Ky., 485 S.W.2d 244, 249-250 (1972). Although Thomas v. Commonwealth, supra note 6 at 259, erroneously cites Penker Const. Co. as reversing the trial court "for denying full exercise of peremptory challenges because prejudice is presumed,” the Penker Const. Co. Court actually affirmed Me jury verdict and held that "the basic issues were such that we find no error in the failure of the trial court to give each defendant three peremptory challenges.”