Court Opinion

ID: 9697024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:04:11.072551+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:28.617714
License: Public Domain

WENNER, Judge,
dissenting.
After being sentenced to a term of twenty years for the assault conviction, and to a consecutive term of three years for the handgun conviction, appellant noted this appeal. As I believe the trial court’s refusal to pose the voir dire question requested by appellant constituted an abuse of discretion, I respectfully dissent.
Defense counsel asked the trial court to inquire of the venire panel whether it could deliver at fair and impartial verdict, despite its sympathy for the victim.1 Following this request, the following colloquy ensued:
STATE: In other words what Counsel is asking is if you have sympathy. Everybody in this room has sympathy for a paraplegic and they have to decide based on what they hear in the courtroom.
THE COURT: I’ve never asked that question before and I’ve had quadriplegics in in [sic] beds before the jury and my fear is it gives fair notice to the jury to say now, they may have sympathy for them, but telling them they ought *590to have sympathy for this, and that’s a legitimate thing to do so far as deciding this case is concerned?
DEFENSE: No, I’d don’t believe it’s legitimate, sir, at all. Sympathy—
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THE COURT: There is an instruction that you can’t decide this case based upon fear and sympathy. I don’t want to highlight this and I think [your request] would be too much of a highlight. There is an instruction in civil as well as criminal instructions saying you must decide this case without fear, without sympathy.
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I’ll tell the jury instruction number 204, impartiality in considerations---- You are to perform this duty without bias or prejudice as to any party. You should not be swayed by sympathy, prejudice or public opinion and that’s the law.
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So, I don’t wish to give it because I don’t think it’s required and I think it would do more harm than good and I so find.
The State believes no such question was required and that the trial court did hot abuse its discretion in rejecting it. I do not agree. Inasmuch as the prospective jurors were unaware of the victim’s age and her injuries, or the cause of those injuries, I believe such a question would have identified potential jurors whose sympathy was cause for disqualification.2 Davis, 333 Md. at 47, 633 A.2d 867. Consequently, I believe *591the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to pose such a question.
The Court of Appeals clearly enunciated in Perry v. State, 344 Md. 204, 217-21, 686 A.2d 274 (1996), cert. denied, - U.S.-, 117 S.Ct. 1318, 137 L.Ed.2d 480 (1997), and Davis v. State, 333 Md. 27, 633 A.2d 867 (1993), the purpose and scope of voir dire. In Davis, appellant claimed the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to ask “whether any of the jurors were, or were associated with, law enforcement personnel.” Id. at 33, 633 A.2d 867. In Perry, the trial court asked whether any of the jurors, their families, or close friends “had a prior experience as a juror, witness, victim or defendant in any criminal homicide or aggravated assault proceeding?” Perry, 344 Md. at 218, 686 A.2d 274. Appellant believed the trial court erred in refusing to expand the question to include any criminal proceedings or any crime of violence. In both Davis and Perry, the Court of Appeals said the trial court did not abuse its discretion because such questions were not required.
Nonetheless, the Davis Court went on to say:
[Wjhere the parties identify an area of potential bias and properly request voir dire questions designed to ascertain jurors whose bias could interfere with their ability to fairly and impartially decide the issues, then the trial judge has an obligation to ask those questions of the venire panel. Merely asking general questions, such as, “is there any reason why you could not render a fair and impartial verdict, ” is not an adequate substitute for properly framed questions designed to highlight specific areas where potential jurors may have biases that could hinder their ability to fairly and impartially decide the case. Those voir dire questions, however, should be framed so as to identify potential jurors with biases which are cause for disqualification, rather than merely identifying potential jurors with attitudes or associations which might facilitate the exercise of peremptory challenges.
*592Id. at 47, 633 A.2d 867.3
A trial court’s process of determining whether a proposed inquiry is reasonably likely to reveal disqualifying partiality or bias includes weighing the expenditure of time and resources in the pursuit of the reason for the response to a proposed voir dire question against the likelihood that pursuing the reason for the response will reveal bias or partiality.
Perry, 344 Md. at 220, 686 A.2d 274.
The Court of Appeals also identified “several areas of inquiry where, if reasonably related to the case at hand, a trial judge must question prospective jurors,” Davis, 333 Md. at 36, 633 A.2d 867, including racial bias, religious bias, unwillingness to convict in a death penalty case founded upon circumstantial evidence, and a tendency to afford more weight to the testimony of a police officer solely because of his or her official status. Id. Maryland appellate courts, however, have yet to address a situation such as that here before us.
In the case at hand, prior to being rendered paraplegic by a stray bullet, the victim was a normal, healthy thirteen-year-old female. Moreover, the trial court was fully aware of her age and the cause and extent of her injuries, that she was to testify for the State, and that it would be necessary for her to testify from either a wheelchair or a stretcher. As we have noted, however, the jurors did not learn of her age and the cause and extent of her injuries until the State’s opening statement.
Although I agree the entire venire panel would sympathize with the victim, I believe that when, as here, “the parties identify an area of potential bias and properly request voir *593dire questions designed to ascertain jurors whose bias could interfere with their ability to fairly and impartially decide the issues____” Davis, 333 Md. at 47, 633 A.2d 867, such a question, if requested, should be asked. The trial court, however, believed such a question would inappropriately highlight the victim’s injuries. I believe such a question would have identified prospective jurors whose sympathy for the victim would hinder their ability fairly and impartially to decide the case. Although the trial court believed its general question and jury instructions were sufficient, again, I do not agree.
The trial court initially posed the following voir dire question:
Is there any member who for any religious reason or any other reason whatsoever cannot judge a person — cannot reach a fair verdict, cannot decide a case, religious, prejudice, or any other reason whatsoever, this [sic] you could not sit as a member of this jury and reach a verdict, render a fair and impartial trial based solely upon the evidence this [sic] you hear in this courtroom and nothing else?
The trial court then said: “[Y]ou must consider and decide this case fairly and impartially. You are to perform this duty without bias or prejudice as to any, party. You should not be swayed by sympathy prejudice or public opinion. That’s the law. Is there any prospective juror who cannot obey the law?”
I do not believe this was sufficient. As I have said, while I recognize that the entire venire panel would sympathize with the victim, some might have been so sympathetic that it would have interfered with their ability to render a fair and impartial verdict based only upon the evidence presented. As we have earlier noted, the trial court gave the venire panel only the defendant’s name, the offenses with which he was charged, the date and location of the incident, the victim’s name, and that there had been a newspaper article about the incident. The victim was not in the courtroom, and the prospective jurors were given no further information about the incident.4
*594The issue here before us is similar to that in Ingoglia v. State, 102 Md.App. 659, 651 A.2d 409 (1995), in which we concluded that because racial prejudice may constitute a cause for disqualification, the trial court erred in refusing to pose a question focusing the prospective jurors’ attention on possible racial prejudice. Id. at 663, 651 A.2d 409. There we reversed the judgment of the circuit court. Although the trial court posed a “general question as to whether the prospective jurors harbored ‘any type of prejudice of any nature whatsoever’ ..., the jurors were not yet aware of the facts of the case or the races of the persons involved.” Id.
When, as here, prospective jurors might be overwhelmed with sympathy upon learning of the age, cause, and the injuries suffered by the victim, I believe a question such as that requested by appellant should have been posed to the venire panel. “Merely asking general questions, such as, is there any reason why you could not render a fair and impartial verdict,’ is not an adequate substitute for properly framed questions designed to highlight specific areas where potential jurors might have biases that could hinder their ability to fairly and impartially decide the case.” Davis, 333 Md. at 47, 633 A.2d 867.
In sum, I believe the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to ask the question requested by appellant. Thus, I would reverse the judgment of the circuit court.

. While I note that the question proposed by defense counsel was neither clear nor included in the defense counsel's proposed voir dire, it was made abundantly clear by the prosecutor. Consequently, it has been preserved for our review. Moreover, it is clear that the trial judge understood the proposed question.

. In fact, the panel ultimately selected was not made aware of the victim's age or injuries until the State’s opening statement.

. In Ingoglia, 102 Md.App. 659, 663, 651 A.2d 409 (1995), we said, when racial prejudice may be a factor, "the requested inquiry into racial prejudice was therefore required.” Furthermore, the "general question as to whether the prospective jurors harbored ‘any type of prejudice of any nature whatsoever' that would have prevented them from deciding the case fairly .... did not sufficiently focus the attention of the jurors on possible racial prejudice.”

. The trial court described the case as follows:
*594The case we have now before this court is called State of Maryland versus Sean Derrick Fowlkes. Mr. Fowlkes is charged with attempted murder and certain related offenses relating to handgun, etcetera. The alleged crime occurred on the 30th day of March, 1994, in the 1800 block of North Chester Street here in the City of Baltimore. The alleged victim was one Marquites Williams ... and a newspaper article appeared concerning this case on May the 22nd, 1995.