Court Opinion

ID: 9752882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 18:42:12.433072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:24.569034
License: Public Domain

STEIN, J.,
dissenting.
That the Court is presented with the critical issue that arose from the jury voir dire is regrettable indeed. During that voir dire defense counsel requested the trial court to ask jurors otherwise qualified to sit whether knowledge of defendant’s prior murder convictions would impair substantially the ability of those jurors to consider and weigh.mitigating factors. The State directed the trial court’s attention to our opinion in *105State v. Williams, 113 N.J. 393, 550 A.2d 1172 (1988) (Williams II), in which we held that it was error for the trial court not to have inquired of jurors during that voir dire whether they automatically would vote to impose the death penalty if the defendant had committed rape and murder, as the indictment alleged. Id. at 417, 550 A.2d 1172. As noted by the majority opinion, the State also submitted a proposed question for the trial court’s use, acknowledging the need for inquiry about defendant’s prior murder convictions. Ante at 34, 594 A.2d at 189. The trial court declined to follow the Court’s analysis in Williams II, independently reasoning that the proposed question about defendant’s prior murder convictions improperly intruded on the jury’s ultimate responsibility to weigh aggravating and mitigating factors.
The Court now holds that the trial court’s failure to submit that inquiry to prospective jurors was not only error but reversible error, because the prejudicial effect of the court’s failure to inquire was not overcome by the balance of the voir dire. The Court acknowledges that notwithstanding the trial court’s failure to question jurors about defendant’s prior murder convictions, the sentence is sustainable if the voir dire was otherwise sufficiently probing to ensure that the jury possessed the “capacity to credit the evidence in mitigation,” ante at 34, 594 A.2d at 189 (quoting State v. Bey, 112 N.J. 123, 154, 548 A.2d 887 (1988)), and the ability to follow the court’s instructions. Concluding that the balance of the voir dire was not sufficiently open-ended and thorough to compensate for the trial court’s refusal to interrogate jurors about defendant’s prior murder convictions, the Court reverses defendant’s sentence. I read the Court’s opinion to hold that the voir diré would not have required reversal but for the trial court’s failure to have questioned jurors about defendant’s prior murder convictions. Although I share with the majority the view that the voir dire should have accommodated the joint request by defense counsel and the State to inquire about defendant’s prior murder convictions, I consider the majority’s conclusion *106that the voir dire was “constitutionally flawed” to overstate substantially the significance of the trial court’s omission.
To afford a context within which to explain my disagreement with the majority, I note that except for Williams II, supra, 113 N.J. 393, 550 A.2d 1172, the majority opinion relies on no other federal or state court decision to support its holding that the failure to inquire about defendant’s prior murder convictions can constitute reversible error if that omission is not redeemed by the balance of the voir dire. Nor does it cite any authority for the proposition that the failure .to inquire about jurors’ attitudes toward any comparable aggravating factor could constitute reversible error. My research has uncovered no such authority. I therefore conclude that the majority’s holding, applying the right to a fair and impartial jury guaranteed under both the federal and the state constitutions, U.S. Const. amends. VI and XIV; N.J. Const. art. I, ¶ 10, is one of first impression.
The Court’s holding is also unique when viewed in the context of the developed jurisprudence on capital-murder juror disqualification, which has invariably focused on the disqualification of jurors scrupled against the death-penalty, so-called Witherspoon excludables. See Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 841 (1985); Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38, 100 S.Ct. 2521, 65 L.Ed.2d 581 (1980); Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510, 88 S.Ct. 1770, 20 L.Ed.2d 776 (1968). In Witherspoon, the Court held that jurors inclined against imposition of the death penalty could be excluded for cause only if they
made unmistakably clear (1) that they would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment without regard to any evidence that might be developed at the trial of the case before them, or (2) that their attitude toward the death penalty would prevent them from making an impartial decision, as to the defendant’s guilt. [391 U.S. at 522 n. 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1777 n. 21, 20 L.Ed.2d at 785 n. 21).]
The Witherspoon standard was modified in Adams v. Texas, supra, 448 U.S. 38, 100 S.Ct. 2521, 65 L.Ed.2d 581, and Wainwright v. Witt, supra, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 841, both cases involving exclusion of jurors disinclined to *107impose the death penalty. In Adams the Court held that such a juror was excludable for cause only if “his views about capital punishment * * * would prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.” 448 U.S. at 45,100 S.Ct. at 2526, 65 L.Ed.2d at 589. In State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 256, 524 A.2d 188 (1987), we held that trial courts should apply the Adams-Witt standard in death-qualifying a jury, and in State v. Bey, supra, 112 N.J. at 152, 548 A.2d 887, we acknowledged that that standard applied to jurors who invariably favor the death penalty as well as to those who oppose it.
Nevertheless, there is a distinct lack of precedent in state and federal decisions relating to disqualification of jurors who favor capital punishment for any defendant convicted of murder. Presumably, the issue is not often preserved for appeal because the automatic death-penalty juror is challenged either for cause or peremptorily. When the issue is presented on appeal, courts generally acknowledge that under the Adams-Witt standard a juror who would vote to impose the death sentence automatically on a defendant convicted of murder should be excused for cause. See, e.g., Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 84-85, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 2276-77, 101 L.Ed.2d 80, 87-88 (1988); accord Hance v. Zant, 696 F.2d 940, 956 (11th Cir.1983); Hovey v. Superior Court, 28 Cal.3d 1, 20 n. 48, 616 P.2d 1301, 1310 n. 48, 168 Cal.Rptr. 128, 137 n. 48 (1980).
However, the Court writes on a clean slate when it applies the Adams-Witt standard to require that jurors who would not vote automatically to impose the death sentence on all convicted murderers must necessarily be interrogated on whether they would so vote if the defendant had prior murder convictions. The Court apparently assumes that a juror unable to verify his or her willingness to weigh mitigating factors against the prior-murder-conviction aggravating factor is necessarily excludable for cause. That assumption ignores a caution expressed in Wainwright v. Witt, supra, 469 U.S. 412, 105 S.Ct. 844, 83 L.Ed.2d 841, although stated in a different context:
*108[Determinations of juror bias cannot be reduced to question-and-answer sessions which obtain results in the manner of a catechism. What common sense should have realized experience has proved: many veniremen simply cannot be asked enough questions to reach the point where their bias has been made "unmistakably clear”; these veniremen may not know how they will react when faced with imposing the death sentence, or may be unable to articulate, or may wish to hide their true feelings. [469 U.S. at 424-25, 105 S.Ct. at 852-53, 83 L.Ed.2d at 852.]
The Court’s holding also ignores the most recent United States Supreme Court decision on jury voir dire, Mu’Min v. Virginia, — U.S.-, 111 S.Ct. 1899, 114 L.Ed.2d 493 (1991), in which the Court determined that the Constitution did not mandate that jurors in a murder prosecution be questioned about the content of pretrial publicity to which they had been exposed, even though eight of the twelve sitting jurors acknowledged familiarity with some pretrial publicity. Emphasizing that the trial court “retains great latitude in deciding what questions should be asked on voir dire,” id. at-, 111 S.Ct. at 1904, the Court stated:
“Despite its importance, the adequacy of voir dire is not easily subject to appellate review. The trial judge’s function at this point in the trial is not unlike that of the jurors later on in the trial. Both must reach conclusions as to impartiality and credibility by relying on their own evaluations of demeanor evidence and of responses to questions.” [Ibid, (quoting Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U.S. 182, 188, 101 S.Ct. 1629, 1634, 68 L.Ed.2d 22, 28 (1981)).]
I cite Mu’Min not for the force of its analysis but rather to emphasize the gap between the majority’s holding and the Supreme Court’s insistence that the Constitution does not ordinarily require that jury voir dire in criminal cases include specific lines of interrogation.
In my view, the Court’s holding attaches undue significance to the question that the trial court refused to ask. I reach that conclusion not because of any doubt that some jurors would react strongly and emotionally to information that defendant had two prior murder convictions, but because such a reaction is almost inevitable and virtually inherent in the Legislature’s designation of a prior murder conviction as an aggravating factor. Jurors informed of a defendant’s prior murder convic*109tions would naturally be influenced in the direction of favoring imposition of the death sentence. Whether a juror would be moved so far as not only to override, but also to preclude, any consideration of mitigating factors is an aspect of the weight to be attached by that juror to the prior murder convictions. To that extent, the trial court correctly observed that inquiry about defendant’s prior murder convictions would intrude to some degree on the weighing process to be conducted during the sentencing phase.
The majority’s holding also overrates the significance of a juror’s response to a question about prior murder convictions. We have learned from extensive review of jury voir dire in capital cases that most jurors have not reflected seriously about their precise views on capital punishment. Even open-ended questions about the death penalty during voir dire generate confusing and contradictory responses. An obvious impediment to an informative voir dire is the built-in time constraint, jurors being required to respond almost immediately to profound questions with religious and philosophical ramifications. Rare is the juror who is able to answer questions about the death penalty coherently, thoughtfully, and responsively. The question whether knowledge of defendant’s two prior murder convictions would impair a juror’s ability fairly to weigh evidence of mitigating factors against that aggravating factor is extraordinarily difficult and subtle. The reliability of the juror’s response may depend on the way the question is phrased, the judge’s tone and demeanor, and whether the juror adequately understands the complexity of the inquiry. Perhaps the best reason for asking the question is that the response may assist counsel in the exercise of peremptory challenges. In my view, however, the majority has attached too much significance to the prospect that the question and its answer reliably will identify jurors who are excludable for cause.
Another reason not to attach undue significance to the trial court’s failure to ask jurors whether defendant’s prior murder convictions would impede their ability to weigh mitigating *110factors is that the question is too abstract. If the response is to be informative, the jurors would seemingly need to be informed about the evidence of mitigating factors against which the prior-murder-conviction aggravating factor is expected to be weighed. In my view they should be so informed, but defendant’s request to the trial court apparently did not contemplate that the inquiry would be made in the context of the anticipated evidence of mitigation. Thus, the responses that the proffered question would have elicited are less significant in the context of the overall voir dire because they would not have reflected the thoughtful view of jurors informed of evidence of both aggravating and mitigating factors.
The Court’s opinion is troublesome for another reason. The Capital Punishment Act sets forth eight aggravating factors, N.J.S.A. 2C:11-3c(4)(a) to (h), all of which have the capacity, either individually or in combination with other aggravating factors, to influence a juror to vote for the death penalty to the extent of precluding that juror’s consideration of mitigating evidence. Murder of a public servant ((c)(4)(h)), murder committed for money ((c)(4)(d)), or murder involving depravity of mind ((c)(4)(c)), are examples of the more inflammatory aggravating factors. In this case the State offered evidence of depravity consisting of testimony that defendant murdered the victim for no reason other than his desire to kill. During the last day of voir dire defense counsel vaguely suggested that the trial court should question jurors whether evidence of the depravity aggravating factor would impair their ability to consider and weigh mitigating evidence, which the trial court summarily rejected. But the Court does not address whether that ruling was error, nor does it offer necessary guidance to trial courts on the aggravating factors about which jurors must be interrogated. The implications of the Court’s ruling in respect of other aggravating factors is an added basis for misgivings about the majority’s holding.
I do not share the majority’s view that this voir dire was constitutionally flawed. As is typical of jury voir dire in other *111capital cases, this voir dire had its ups and downs, including both instances of patient, open-ended inquiry and occasions on which the trial court’s questions hinted at a desired response. The trial court, nonetheless, consistently excused prospective jurors who indicated even the slightest suggestion of a predisposition to sentence defendant to death, including all jurors who expressed the possibility of prejudice because the victim was a young woman. On the whole, this voir dire in my view reflected a thoughtful and conscientious effort by the trial court to select a fair and impartial jury, with little objection having been asserted by defense counsel. The voir dire in this case simply cannot be compared with the inadequate voir dire that was the basis for our reversal in Williams II, supra, 113 N.J. 393, 550 A.2d 1172.
Because voir dire is an art and not a science, I believe the Court is unwise in attempting to freeze-frame part of the script for a constitutionally acceptable voir dire in capital cases. Bright-line rules for the conduct of voir dire are inherently suspect because they generate the need for more rules and exceptions to rules. In reviewing capital-case voir dire, we should be guided not by scripts or formulas but by the fundamental question whether the jury empaneled was fair and impartial, a standard I am convinced was satisfied in this case. I would affirm defendant’s sentence.
For Vacation and Remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices CLIFFORD, HANDLER and POLLOCK — 4.
For Affirmance — Justices O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 3.