Court Opinion

ID: 9478571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:52:15.405452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:29.908476
License: Public Domain

LARSON, Senior District Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority’s holding that the trial judge, not the magistrate, should have presided over the jury selection in this case. I write separately because I do not agree that defendants are entitled to a new trial on this basis.
The majority states that the defendants objected to the magistrate conducting voir dire at the first opportunity before the trial judge. My review of the record and the briefs indicates that defendants did not object to the empaneling of the jury by the magistrate, but only objected to the manner in which the magistrate conducted voir dire.
In denying the defendants’ motions for a new trial, the district court referred to defendants’ arguments that the magistrate unduly restricted them and was impatient with them. The district court stated, however, that the defendants did not object to the selection of the jury by the magistrate. The district court stated further that counsel had the opportunity to object and that the court would have been available to consider their objections had they so desired.
Only after the district judge invited comment at the posttrial hearing on the Fifth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Ford, 824 F.2d 1430 (5th Cir.1987), did the issue of the magistrate’s authority to preside over voir dire arise. Defendants argued before the district court that their failure to object was immaterial, and the court in my view properly rejected this argument.
After an eight day trial, the jury convicted the three appealing defendants and acquitted one defendant. The jury correctly applied the reasonable doubt requirement and the defendants had a fair trial. Another eight day trial would not produce a different result. Accordingly, I would hold, as the Ford court held, that because defendants failed to object to the magistrate conducting voir dire, and because their trial was fundamentally fair, their convictions should be affirmed. See id. at 1438-39.