Court Opinion

ID: 9785912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 22:47:37.311953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:35.791911
License: Public Domain

MANNHEIMER, Judge,
concurring.
I write separately to explain the facts pertaining to the issue of whether Bryant’s trial attorney should have peremptorily challenged Juror Fulk.
As described in the lead opinion, the record shows that Juror Steven Fulk was a good friend of the main investigating officer in Bryant’s case, Trooper Robert Cox. In previous years, when Cox lived in Ketchikan, the two men attended the same church and went fishing together. By the time of Bryant’s trial, Trooper Cox had been transferred away from Ketchikan, but Cox and Fulk remained friends. Cox stayed with the Fulk family during Bryant’s trial.
Even though Juror Fulk declared that he could set aside his friendship with Cox, and that he could fairly weigh Cox’s testimony along with the other evidence in the case, Fulk’s close friendship with Cox would seemingly counsel any defense attorney to get rid of Fulk. However, Fulk’s answers during voir dire also revealed a reason why he might be considered a favorable juror for the defense.
During voir dire, Fulk described in an incident in which a close family member was suspected of sexually abusing Fulk’s son. Fulk stated that he still was not sure whether anything improper had happened, but no prosecution was ever pursued, and he was still on speaking terms with this family member. Fulk declared that, based on this incident, he had learned the lesson that, while children might have a good reason for complaining about an adult’s actions, the complaint might arise from the child’s misunderstanding of innocent conduct.
Fulk’s experience — the fact that a member of his own family had been suspected of sexual abuse, based on an apparent misunderstanding — was a good reason why a defense attorney might want to keep Fulk on the jury in Bryant’s case. Thus, the ultimate decision facing Bryant’s attorney — to challenge Fulk, or to leave him on the jury-rested on weighing Fulk’s friendship with Trooper Cox against Fulk’s prior experience with an unfounded accusation of sexual abuse against a family member. Faced with this quandary, a defense attorney could reasonably decide that the potential benefit of leaving Fulk on the jury outweighed the risk stemming from Fulk’s friendship with the trooper.