Court Opinion

ID: 9746535
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:21:11.067508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:14.545324
License: Public Domain

CAPPY, Justice,
concurring.
I join in the opinion of the majority with the exception of the majority’s interpretation of the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28, 106 S.Ct. 1683, 90 L.Ed.2d 27 (1986), as expressed in footnote 19. (Opinion at pg. 610).
In Turner, seven Justices of the Court agreed that a defendant accused of an interracial capital crime is entitled to voir dire prospective jurors on the issue of racial bias. Of the seven Justices agreeing on that issue, one concurred in the result only, four Justices found that the error in refusing to permit voir dire on racial bias affected only the penalty phase of the proceeding, and two Justices found the error affected both the guilt and penalty phases. The two Justices in the dissent found no error.
The majority opinion herein reads Turner as limiting voir dire questions on racial bias to capital cases in jurisdictions where the jury has greater discretion in imposing a death sentence than juries in capital cases in Pennsylvania. It is this limitation of Turner with which I cannot agree. In my opinion the holding of Turner was not restricted by the range of discretion that a particular sentencing jury wields under the Virginia capital sentencing scheme; rather, the court was focusing upon the greater discretion possessed by penalty *616phase juries as opposed to guilt phase juries. The language of Turner which explains this distinction is as follows:
The inadequacy of voir dire in this case requires that petitioner’s death sentence be vacated. It is not necessary, however, that he be retried on the issue of guilt. Our judgment in this case is that there was an unacceptable risk of racial prejudice infecting the capital sentencing proceeding. This judgment is based on a conjunction of three factors: the fact that the crime charged involved interracial violence, the broad discretion given the jury at the death-penalty hearing, and the special seriousness of the risk of improper sentencing in a capital case. At the guilt phase of petitioner’s trial, the jury had no greater discretion than it would have had if the crime charged had been noncapital murder.
476 U.S. at 37,106 S.Ct. at 1689 (emphasis in original).
Accordingly, as I do not agree with the views expressed by the majority regarding the Turner decision, I write to disassociate myself from that portion of the majority opinion.
FLAHERTY, C.J., joins.