Court Opinion

ID: 9431385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:32:11.699071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:28.230295
License: Public Domain

Justice Marshall,
with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join, dissenting.
A man’s life is at stake. We should not be playing games. In this case, everyone concedes that the trial judge could not arbitrarily take away one of the defendant’s peremptory chal*92lenges. Yet, that is in effect exactly what happened here. I respectfully dissent.
Neither the State nor this Court disputes that the trial court “erred” when it refused to strike juror Huling for cause from the jury that sentenced petitioner Bobby Lynn Ross to death. Huling twice stated during voir dire that if he were to find Ross guilty of murder, he would automatically vote to impose the death penalty; there is no question that Huling was not the fair and impartial juror guaranteed to petitioner by the Sixth Amendment. The Court concludes, however, that the trial court’s error does not require resentencing because it was “cure[d]” by the defense’s use of one of a limited number of peremptory challenges to remove the biased juror. Ante, at 88. I believe that this conclusion is irreconcilable with this Court’s holding just last Term that a similar Sixth Amendment error in capital jury selection requires re-sentencing if “ ‘the composition of the jury panel as a whole could possibly have been affected by the trial court’s error.’” Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U. S. 648, 665 (1987), quoting Moore v. Estelle, 670 F. 2d 56, 58 (CA5) (specially concurring opinion), cert. denied, 458 U. S. 1111 (1982). The Court’s attempt to distinguish Gray not only fails to persuade, but also fails to protect petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury by condoning a scheme that penalizes the assertion of that right. I am convinced that application of Gray’s per se resentencing rule in this case is the only course consistent with the Sixth Amendment.
In Gray, the trial court granted the State’s motion to strike for cause a juror who expressed some reservations about capital punishment, but nonetheless stated that she could vote to impose the death penalty in appropriate circumstances. The trial court’s exclusion of this qualified juror was Sixth Amendment error under Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510 (1968), and Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985). The Gray Court refused the State’s invitation to apply harmless-error analysis to such an error. Specifically, *93the Court rejected the argument that the State’s retention of unexercised peremptory challenges at the end of jury selection indicated that the error was harmless because the State would have removed the juror by peremptory challenge if the trial court had denied its for-cause motion. In addition, the Court rejected the argument that the error was an isolated incident without prejudicial effect because the ultimate panel fairly represented the commmunity. The Court explained that the contingent nature of the jury selection process “defies any attempt to establish that an erroneous Witherspoon-Witt exclusion of a juror is harmless.” 481 U. S., at 665. According to the Court, “the relevant inquiry is ‘whether the composition of the jury panel as a whole could possibly have been affected by the trial court’s error.’” Ibid, (citation omitted). The Court recognized that its decision established a per se rule requiring the vacation of a death sentence imposed by a jury whose composition was affected by Witherspoon error. 481 U. S., at 660, 668.
The Court today unaccountably refuses to apply this per se rule in a case involving a similar Sixth Amendment error. Here the trial court, rather than excusing a qualified juror, refused to excuse a biased juror. The defense’s attempt to correct the court’s error and preserve its Sixth Amendment claim deprived it of a peremptory challenge. That deprivation “could possibly have . . . affected” the composition of the jury panel under the Gray standard, because the defense might have used the extra peremptory to remove another juror and because the loss of a peremptory might have affected the defense’s strategic use of its remaining peremp-tories. See id., at 665 (“A prosecutor with fewer peremptory challenges in hand may be willing to accept certain jurors whom he would not accept given a larger reserve of peremptories”). Even the Court acknowledges that the defense’s loss of a peremptory meets the Gray test. See ante, at 87 (“[T]he failure to remove Huling may have resulted in a *94jury panel different from that which would otherwise have decided the case”).
Indeed, the loss of a peremptory challenge in this case affected the composition of the jury panel in precisely the same way as the trial court’s error in Gray itself. In Gray, the defendant was deprived of a juror who, although inexcusable for cause, seemed to be sympathetic to the defense in that she had expressed reservations about the death penalty. The defense in the instant case was deprived of an opportunity to remove an otherwise qualified juror whom it perceived to be sympathetic to the prosecution. The defense’s loss of a peremptory challenge thus resulted in a “ ‘tribunal organized to return a verdict of death’ ” in exactly the fashion we rejected so recently in Gray. 481 U. S., at 668, quoting Witherspoon, supra, at 521.
The Court attempts to distinguish Gray in two ways. First, the Court dismissively declares that the Gray standard is “too sweeping to be applied literally.” Ante, at 87. The Court offers only one reason for narrowing Gray’s, broad language: if any Sixth Amendment error that “could possibly have . . . affected” the composition of the jury requires reversal, a trial court could never dismiss the venire and start anew, because the jury resulting from the new venire would necessarily be different from the one that would have been empaneled in the absence of the original error. Ante, at 87, n. 2. This argument misses the point of the Gray decision. The Gray Court did not hold that a defendant has the right to any particular venire or panel; rather, the Court held that a defendant has a right to a jury selection procedure untainted by constitutional error. Because it is impossible to be sure that an erroneous ruling by the trial court did not tilt the panel against the defendant, a death sentence returned by such a panel cannot stand. A wholly new venire does not pose the same problem of “tilting” as the result of constitutional error. Thus, the Court is simply wrong that the Gray standard would prevent a trial court from correcting an erro*95neous ruling by starting anew. The Court’s unwillingness to apply the Gray standard “literally” is without foundation.
Second, the Court attempts to limit Gray by distinguishing it factually from the instant case. The Court correctly notes that “[o]ne of the principal concerns animating the decision in Gray was the inability to know to a certainty whether the prosecution could and would have used a peremptory challenge to remove the erroneously excused juror.” Ante, at 88, citing 481 U. S., at 670, n. 2 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). The Court then attempts to distinguish the instant case as follows: “In the instant case, there is no need to speculate whether Huling would have been removed absent the erroneous ruling by the trial court; Huling was in fact removed and did not sit.” Ante, at 88.
The Court again misses the point of the Gray Court’s reasoning. Gray did not indicate that the use of peremptory challenges always “cures” erroneous for-cause rulings. Rather, the Gray Court reasoned that if it could be sure that the prosecution would have excused the erroneously excused juror by use of a peremptory challenge, and if it could be sure that the composition of the jury panel would thereby be identical to the jury that was empaneled as a result of the error, then there would be no need for reversal. Because the Court could not be certain of the former point, reversal was required. In the instant case, although the Court can be sure that a peremptory challenge was in fact employed in an attempt to cure the erroneous for-cause ruling, the Court cannot be sure that the composition of the jury panel was thereby unaffected — as the Court itself acknowledges. See ante, at 87. Reversal is therefore required in the instant case as well, as the very portion of Justice Powell’s concurrence in Gray that is quoted by the Court clearly establishes: “the only question is whether there is a reasonable doubt that the composition of the venire would have been different as a result.” 481 U. S., at 670, n. 2.
*96The only argument that might successfully distinguish the instant case from Gray is implicit in the Court’s holding, although not expressly made. The Court leaves undisturbed Gray’s rule that constitutional error in jury selection requires reversal if it changes the composition of the jury, but the Court holds that reversal is not required if state law requires a party to attempt to correct such error and this attempt leads to a change in jury composition. Under this view, any change in the composition of the jury wrought by the loss of a defense peremptory in the instant case was the result not of the trial court’s error, but of the defense’s attempt to cure that error pursuant to state law; the defense’s use of a peremptory challenge was an intervening cause that broke the causal link between the trial court’s error and the change in jury composition.
This “intervening cause” argument does distinguish the instant case from Gray, but it engenders serious constitutional problems of its own. The State’s requirement that a defendant employ a peremptory challenge in order to preserve a Sixth Amendment claim arising from a trial court’s erroneous for-cause ruling burdens the defendant’s exercise of his Sixth Amendment right to a impartial jury. It is undisputed that petitioner had a Sixth Amendment right to be sentenced by a jury on which juror Huling did not sit. Yet the only way for petitioner to preserve this right under state law was to give up one of a limited number of peremptory challenges. We have emphasized that the ability to exercise peremptory challenges is “one of the most important of the rights secured to the accused,” Pointer v. United States, 151 U. S. 396, 408 (1894), and that it “long has served the selection of an impartial jury,” Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, 99, n. 22 (1986). It cannot seriously be questioned that the loss of a peremptory challenge vis-a-vis the prosecution burdens the defense in pretrial proceedings.
A venerable line of this Court’s precedents has held that legislative schemes that unnecessarily burden the exercise of *97federal constitutional rights cannot stand. Just a few examples from the criminal context suffice to establish this principle. In United States v. Jackson, 390 U. S. 570 (1968), the Court struck down a provision of the Federal Kidnapping Act that rendered eligible for the death penalty only defendants who invoked their right to trial by jury. The Court recognized that Congress’ goal in enacting the provision was legitimate, but held that “[w]hatever might be said of Congress’ objectives, they cannot be pursued by means that needlessly chill the exercise of basic constitutional rights.” Id., at 582. And in Brooks v. Tennessee, 406 U. S. 605 (1972), the Court struck down a state law that required a defendant who wished to testify on his own behalf to be the first defense witness presented. We noted that the state law at issue “exacts a price for [the defendant’s] silence by keeping him off the stand entirely unless he chooses to testify first,” id., at 610, and that it therefore “casts a heavy burden on a defendant’s otherwise unconditional right not to take the stand,” id., at 610-611.
The Court today ignores the clear dictates of these and other similar cases by condoning a scheme in which a defendant must surrender procedural parity with the prosecution in order to preserve his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. The Court notes that “there is nothing arbitrary or irrational” about the State’s rule that a defendant must use a peremptory challenge to cure an erroneous for-cause ruling, because the State has an interest in preventing needless or frivolous appeals. Ante, at 90. But the existence of a rational rather than a punitive reason for a burdensome requirement is of little significance under our cases. In Brooks, the State’s interest in preventing the defendant’s testimony from being influenced by the testimony of other defense witnesses was rational, but we found it insufficient to override the defendant’s right to remain silent at trial. 406 U. S., at 611. And in Jackson, we struck down a federal statutory provision that was motivated by the legitimate in*98terest of permitting the death penalty to be imposed only upon the recommendation of a jury, because Congress had other means available to achieve that goal without burdening the exercise of constitutional rights. 390 U. S., at 582-583. In the instant case, the State’s desire to prevent needless or frivolous appeals is insufficient to overcome the right to an impartial adjudicator, which “goes to the very integrity of the legal system.” Gray, 481 U. S., at 668. Moreover, the State’s concerns obviously could be addressed in numerous other ways. See, e. g., Oklahoma Supreme Court Code of Professional Responsibility, DR 1-102(A)(4) (“A lawyer shall not. . . [e]ngage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation”). The burden on petitioner’s Sixth Amendment rights is thus both heavy and avoidable. Our cases accordingly mandate the conclusion that the Oklahoma scheme cannot stand.
The Court’s failure to apply Gray's rule of 'per se reversal in this case is not justified by any of the Court’s attempts to distinguish Gray. The only argument that might distinguish the instant case from Gray must condone an impermissible burden on the exercise of petitioner’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. Because I am convinced that the Court’s decision today cannot be squared with the Sixth Amendment either under our recent analysis in Gray or our other precedents, I dissent. I would reverse the judgment of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals to the extent that it left undisturbed the sentence of death.