Court Opinion

ID: 9543372
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:44:55.791582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:14.138335
License: Public Domain

RANSOM, Justice (specially concurring). While I concur in the affirmance of the verdict, judgment and sentence of the trial court, I dissent from the rationale stated by the majority for holding that defendant was not denied due process in voir dire. The fault in the proposed voir dire was that it invited the jury to speculate and it was arguably a veiled attempt to instruct upon and argue for the jury’s application of a specific rule of law. It did not propose to discover what law the jury knew, as intimated by the court, but rather what the jury’s state of mind might be after hearing the evidence and being instructed on the law. A distinction is to be drawn between a proper inquiry of fact structured to learn a juror’s present state of mind as compared to a question that requires the juror to speculate what his/her state of mind might be after hearing the evidence and being instructed on specific law. A court reasonably could preclude voir dire along the latter line. In any event, what is determinative in this case is that, following the colloquy between court and defense counsel as set forth under Legal Issue (1), the court invited counsel to cite authority that the inquiry would be appropriate. Defense counsel responded that, “The only authority I’m aware of suggests that it’s discretionary with the court.” Having invited the court to exercise its discretion, defendant cannot now complain of the court’s exercise of discretion in refusing to allow defense counsel to recite the law and to request that the jury speculate as to whether it would follow that law after hearing all the evidence. We need go no further in deciding this issue.