Court Opinion

ID: 9850395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:56:29.635859+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:36.196485
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). I concur with the majority opinion's conclusion that no rule should exclude all law enforcement officers from jury duty in every criminal case as a matter of law and that *485the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in this case. Law enforcement officials should not be singled out as a group for exclusion from jury duty simply because of their chosen profession.
Excluding all police as jurors could be construed as a judicial finding that law enforcement officers cannot be fair to an accused or that the public perceives all officers as biased. Such a finding would be inconsistent with the public's expectation that law enforcement officials abide by standards of fairness. Although law enforcement officers have an obligation to ferret out crime, they also have a duty, shared with all in the administration of justice, to "respect the constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality, and justice." Law Enforcement Code of Ethics.
When any segment of the community, including law enforcement officers (and by implication their families?), is excluded as a matter of law from jury service based on stereotypes and innuendo, the representativeness of the jury is reduced and the jury loses one of a variety of perspectives on human events. The legislative policy embodied in the jury qualification statutes, secs. 756.01 and 756.02, Stats. 1987-88, is to allow all citizens to serve.
If we exclude law enforcement officers as jurors in all criminal proceedings, must we also exclude all doctors as a matter of law in every proceeding involving a doctor as a witness or party? All construction workers when a construction worker is a witness or party to a dispute? All employees engaged in the same type of employment as a witness or party?
I write separately to emphasize that circuit courts should, of course, be particularly sensitive to a motion to remove for cause a law enforcement officer who has a real relation with either the case or a fellow officer who *486will be called as a witness. Circuit courts should, as they do in the case of any potential juror who is a co-employee or an acquaintance of a witness, conduct a rigorous examination of the potential juror to ensure that any existing relationship does not interfere with the juror's duty to view the evidence impartially.