Court Opinion

ID: 9694284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:34:52.321601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:58.830775
License: Public Domain

RUIZ, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I concur with the majority opinion and write separately to disagree with only one point, unnecessary in light of the majority’s reliance on a plain error standard of review, that “because the right of peremptory challenge is not a constitutional right, its violation must be viewed as a ‘trial error’ and not *1073a ‘structural defect’ under Arizona v. Fulmi-nante. ” See ante at 1072. I agree with the thrust of Judge Ferren’s analysis that whether a right has a constitutional basis and whether it is “structural” in nature are not necessarily the same thing for purposes of deciding whether automatic reversal is required if an appellate court finds a violation of the right.
The Supreme Court’s opinions in Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 111 S.Ct. 1246, 118 L.Ed.2d 302 (1991), and the cases cited therein, deal only with constitutional rights and do not say one way or another whether a non-constitutional right may be “structural” in the sense that reversal is required if the right is violated. Fulminante is binding on us only with regard to federal issues. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 21, 87 S.Ct. 824, 826, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967) (“The application of a state harmless-error rule is, of course, a state question where it involves only errors of state procedure or state law.”).
Fulminante is nonetheless instructive in this case involving a non-constitutional right because it explains that what requires per se reversal in the case of what are referred to as “structural defects” is that it is impossible or virtually impossible for an appellate court to evaluate whether such an error was harmless — either because it would be too speculative (for example, in the case of an uncoun-seled client with a Sixth Amendment right to counsel, how do you know what counsel would have done?) or because it offends such a rock-bottom notion of fairness (for example, the impartiality of the judge) that we are not willing even to contemplate such a procedure. This view is merely the other side of Chief Justice Rehnquist’s observation that “trial errors” are subject to harmless error analysis (even when they violate constitutional rights) because they can be “quantitatively assessed in the context of other evidence presented” to the jury. Fulminante, supra, 499 U.S. at 308, 111 S.Ct. at 1264.
An error is “structural” and requires per se reversal, on the other hand, because it cannot be so quantitatively assessed. See id. at 309-10, 111 S.Ct. at 1265 (“The entire conduct of the trial from beginning to end is obviously affected by the absence of counsel for a criminal defendant, just as it is by the presence on the bench of a judge who is not impartial.”); Sullivan v. Louisiana, 508 U.S. 275, 279-81, 113 S.Ct. 2078, 2082, 124 L.Ed.2d 182 (1993) (quoting from Fulminante that “structural defects in the constitution of the trial mechanism ... defy analysis by ‘harmless-error’ standards”). Although it is possible, perhaps even likely, that most “structural” rights are protected by the Constitution, logic does not dictate that all “structural” rights — defined as those the deprivation of which cannot be quantitatively assessed on appeal — have a constitutional basis.
Applying that standard of “assessability” to the error in this case, I conclude that the prosecution’s inadvertent failure to disclose the name of one of its witnesses the first day of voir dire, even assuming that it hampered the appellants’ exercise of peremptory challenges, can be assessed to have been harmless based on the judge’s implicit finding that the juror was not biased, see ante at 1072, and the advanced stage of the proceedings. Although peremptory challenges are subjectively exercised, their value to our system of justice is as “a means to achieve the end of an impartial jury.” Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 88, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 2278, 101 L.Ed.2d 80 (1988). Where the jury’s impartiality is not in question, we may also take into account other values such as conservation of judicial resources and preservation of jury deliberations that are not improperly tainted, in deciding whether the infringement of the right to peremptory strikes suffered by appellants requires reversal when viewed in the context of harm to the system as a whole. In this case, objection was made after a trial had been conducted and jury deliberations had begun. Per se reversal would mean the loss of those invested judicial resources. Because that loss is not outweighed in this case by a claim of juror bias, reversal is not required. Cf. D.C.Code § 23-105(d) (1996) (prohibiting setting aside verdicts based on challenges to jurors that could have been asserted before the jury was sworn unless, inter alia, the juror “had a bias against the defendant such as would have disqualified him”). Therefore, but for application of a *1074plain error standard of review, a harmlessness analysis would be appropriate in this case because the analysis can be conducted and the convictions affirmed because the error was harmless.