Court Opinion

ID: 9789839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:42:33.420378+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:24.593772
License: Public Domain

ZIMMERMAN, Chief Justice, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. On balance, I conclude that the disadvantages of adopting the cure-or-waive rule outweigh its benefits. The State argues that the cure-or-waive rule will discourage the planting of reversible error because the defendant who makes the tactical decision to utilize his or her peremptory challenges to remove jurors other than those challenged for cause must live with that tactical decision, irrespective of the verdict. Thus, the State argues, the cure-or-waive rule avoids rewarding a defendant for “sabotaging his own trial.”
I concede that the cure-or-waive rule would prevent the planting of error as a backstop against a guilty verdict. However, I do not find this justification for the rule particularly strong. I think it far more realistic to presume that defense counsel ordinarily will choose to strike a biased juror in the hope of avoiding a conviction rather than risking a conviction by caleulatingly permitting a biased juror to sit and hoping for reversal on appeal. Defense counsel’s primary duty is to seek an acquittal, not a reversible conviction. Therefore, I deem the benefits of the cure-or-waive rule to be rather speculative.
In contrast, the disadvantages of the cure- or-waive rule are significant. In State v. Menzies, 889 P.2d 393, 400 (Utah 1994), this court recognized that trial judges often are reluctant to strike jurors. See also State v. Carter, 888 P.2d 629, 649-50 (Utah) (noting concern with “trial courts’ frequent insistence on passing jurors for cause ... when legití-mate concerns about their suitability have been raised during voir dire”), cert. denied, — U.S. —, 116 S.Ct. 163, 133 L.Ed.2d 105 (1995). There may be various reasons for this reluctance, including administrative convenience and a desire not to permit people to easily avoid the burdens of jury service. Whatever the reasons, an undue reluctance to strike challenged jurors may, in the long run, result in convictions that do not stand up on appeal. Id. at 650. As this court noted in Jenkins v. Parrish, 627 P.2d 533, 536 (Utah 1981), “[I]t is a simple matter to obviate any problem of bias simply by excusing the prospective juror and *511selecting another.” Accordingly, in Carter, we strongly advised trial courts “to be more conservative ... when making for-cause determinations.” Carter, 888 P.2d at 650. I would reiterate that advice today.
The majority’s adoption of the cure-or-waive rule also tends to provide an additional incentive to trial judges not to strike jurors challenged for cause. The rule ensures not only that a conviction will not be reversed, but also that the trial court will not be held accountable for erroneously denying a for cause challenge, so long as the defendant has at least one peremptory challenge left. We should be loath to create a mechanism that could be seen as giving trial judges the ability to force defendants to use all their per-emptories to cure trial court refusals to strike biased jurors. This is completely inconsistent with the fact that empaneling impartial jurors is primarily the responsibility of the trial judge. Id. at 649-50.
The State also argues that adopting the cure-or-waive rule will promote symmetry in criminal trials because the State is, in effect, already subject to the rule. Specifically, if the State’s for-cause challenge is denied, it is compelled to exercise a peremptory strike to avoid the operation of double jeopardy principles and statutory limitations that would prevent retrial if the biased juror sits and the defendant is acquitted.
In making this argument, the State assumes that some such symmetry is an unspoken premise of American criminal law. But history is to the contrary. Peremptory challenges and the criminal trial as a whole were never meant to be an even balance between the State and the defendant.
From its inception in English common law, long before the founding of this country, the peremptory challenge was characterized as an “arbitrary and capricious” right “full of that tenderness and humanity to prisoners, for which our English laws are justly famous.” 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 353 (15th ed. 1809). According to Blackstone, peremptory challenges were granted to defendants for two reasons: first, because of sudden impressions and unaccountable prejudices that the defendant may have against potential jurors and, second, because questioning in for-cause challenges may sometimes provoke resentment if the for-cause challenge is denied and the juror sits. Id.
This English common law history influenced the development of the peremptory challenge in this country.1 The founders of this nation believed that a defendant’s peremptory challenge right was such a fundamental precept of American common law that the language proposed for the Sixth Amendment in 1789 included “the right of challenge and other accustomed prerequisites.” Gazette of the United States, Aug. 29, 1789, at 158. While the Sixth Amendment as ratified does not mention the defendant’s right to peremptory challenges, Congress effectively codified the common law rule in 1790 by granting defendants thirty-five peremptory challenges in trials for treason and twenty in trials for other enumerated felonies. Act of Apr. 30,1790, ch. 9, § 30,1 Stat. 119. Notably, the federal statute denied peremptory challenges to the government. Id. Congress did not change this practice until 1865, when it provided the government a limited number of peremptory challenges in federal criminal trials. Act of Mar. 3, 1865, eh. 86, § 2, 13 Stat. 500 (1865). The states soon followed suit and enacted statutes granting peremptory challenges to the prosecution. The number of peremptory challenges granted to the government, however, was often fewer than the number afforded the defendant.
Thus, while at times the prosecution has not been afforded peremptory challenges by statute, peremptories have always been a defendant’s right. See Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 214-17, 85 S.Ct. 824, 832-34, 13 L.Ed.2d 759 (1965) (detailing origins of peremptory challenges in United States), overruled by Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). I therefore find no merit to the State’s argument that rules regarding peremptories *512should be designed to promote symmetry between the prosecution and the defense.
Having considered the policies at issue, I would conclude that the cure-or-waive rule should not be adopted. Therefore, I would affirm the court of appeals.
DURHAM, J., concurs.

. For a detailed account of the history and development of the peremptory challenge in this country, see Douglas L. Colbert, Challenging the Challenge: Thirteenth Amendment as a Prohibition Against the Racial Use of Peremptory Challenges, 76 Cornell L.Rev. 1, 9-12 (1990).