Court Opinion

ID: 9535653
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:51:39.178092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:17.995644
License: Public Domain

MACK, Associate Judge,
dissenting in part:
While concurring in all other respects, I respectfully dissent from Part II of the majority’s opinion. Here we have a juror, preparing to judge as she ultimately did, the guilt or innocence of a defendant for the crime of armed robbery, who announces prior to hearing the evidence, her firm conviction that the defendant was then “high off narcotics.” The likelihood of partiality, when weighed against the difficulty of replacing the juror at this point, seems to me so great as to have required excusing her for cause. The very nature of the juror’s opinion placed her in a posture of one who has heard evidence establishing motive — a fact raising a presumption of partiality which threatens the presumption of innocence. See Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961).