Court Opinion

ID: 9528039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:36:33.000806+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:25.568454
License: Public Domain

CORCORAN, Justice,
dissenting:
An old legal adage holds that “bad facts make bad law.” A more recent corollary is that “odd facts make odd law.” Doggett v. United States, — U.S. —, —, 112 S.Ct. 2686, 2694, 120 L.Ed.2d 520 (1992) (Thomas, J., dissenting). In this case, the majority reaches a bizarre result and creates a new corollary: good facts make bad law.
I. The Facts
Defendant was charged with, and a fair and impartial jury convicted him of, two counts of child molestation. Defendant’s victims were his niece and his half-sister. The jury found these children credible as witnesses. Their statements were spontaneous and consistent, and showed knowledge of intimate sexual acts well beyond that of other children their ages. Both children’s statements were corroborated by physical indications of abuse.
The children testified with great difficulty. Defendant’s niece attempted to recount two separate instances of molestation by her 36-year-old uncle. The prosecutor tried to lead her as gently as possible through the painful details. She was about 6 years old and in kindergarten the first time defendant molested her. She told the jury that her uncle took her into a bedroom and placed her on the bed on her back with her feet hanging over the edge. He then removed her panties, knelt beside her, and touched her private part with his, both outside and inside. He made her private part wet. She was 8 years old and in second grade when she told the jury about this molestation. The niece proceeded with greater difficulty when asked about another molestation, in which her uncle touched her private parts and made her touch his, which were wet. She had difficulty telling the jury what happened. She was then subject to cross-examination.
The other child, defendant’s half-sister, experienced great distress on the witness stand. The prosecutor terminated the direct examination almost immediately because the child began to cry and could not continue. Cross-examination followed a 3-minute recess which was taken to give the child time to regain her composure. During the cross-examination, she told how defendant had placed her on his wet lap with his pants unzipped. She was 8 years old and in second grade at the time. In a previously made videotape, she told of other incidents of molestation by defendant.
In addition to the testimony of the two children, the prosecution offered expert testimony by a physician and two social workers. The physician, a pediatric specialist in the field of child abuse, made physical findings of molestation which corroborated the children’s stories. The social workers, who also specialize in child abuse, interviewed both children and videotaped the interviews, which the jury later viewed. Additional witnesses also testified for the prosecution.
Defendant testified that these incidents of molestation never happened. The defense also offered the testimony of two other witnesses. One, the expert witness, was a medical general practitioner.
*268The jury deliberated for about two hours before finding defendant guilty on 2 counts of child molestation beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial judge later denied the motion for a new trial on three grounds, one of which was that the verdicts were correct based on the evidence presented. These verdicts were based on substantial evidence of guilt.
II. The Law
A number of constitutional provisions, statutes, and rules come into play in considering this case.
A defendant in a criminal prosecution has the right to “trial by an impartial jury.” Ariz. Const. art. 2, § 24. See rule 18.4(b), Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure (“fair and impartial verdict”).
In determining whether a defendant has had trial by “an impartial jury,” this court is admonished to consider fundamental principles. To adhere , to the constitution, this court is required to look to the past.
A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is essential to the security of individual rights____
Art. 2, § 1.
The Constitution also admonishes judges that [no] cause shall be reversed for technical error in ... proceedings when upon the whole case it shall appear that substantial justice has been done.
Art. 6, § 27. See also Rule 61, Arizona Rules of Civil Practice.
The Arizona legislature has also adopted a statute which is relevant to the issues of this case:
Neither a departure from the form or mode prescribed in respect to any pleadings or proceedings, nor an error or mistake therein, shall render the pleading or proceeding invalid, unless it actually has prejudiced, or tended to prejudice, the defendant in respect to a substantial right.
A.R.S. § 13-3987.
The Encinas case, decided by this court in 1923, is the earliest Arizona case deciding the point at issue. The majority opinion in this case correctly characterizes En-cinas, but the majority incorrectly implies that Encinas was “expressly rejected by this court” in Thompson. In any event, the issue in Thompson was not whether the erroneous denial of a challenge for cause by the trial court, where the venire juror does not sit on the petit jury, required reversal of a conviction. The issue in Thompson was whether 3 venire jurors stricken by the defendant with peremptory challenges who did sit on the petit jury required a reversal of the conviction. I agree with the result in Thompson; it is reversible error for the court to allow a venire juror validly stricken by peremptory challenge to sit on the petit jury.
Unfortunately, this court in Wasko v. Frankel, acting in ignorance of the holding in Encinas, applied the holding in Thompson to the facts in Encinas, resulting in a total change in the law. The Wasko court, because it did not see Encinas in front leading the way, made a U-turn and went in the wrong direction. Thereafter, the same mistake has been repeated by Arizona appellate courts, including the majority in this case.
Clearly, a defendant’s right to a fair and impartial jury is a “substantial right.” It is wrong to conclude, however, that a reversal must result where the trial court erroneously denies a challenge for cause and the defendant strikes the venire juror with a peremptory strike. The use of the peremptory strike vindicates the defendant’s “substantial right” to a fair and impartial jury. That happened here. The defendant secured and was convicted by a fair and impartial jury. Looking at the “whole case,” as we must under article 6, § 27, the error in the trial court was “technical error.” I conclude that “substantial justice has been done.”
The cases are too numerous to need citation for the propositions that the defendant is entitled to a fair and impartial jury, not to one of his own choosing; and that although the defendant is entitled to a fair trial, he is not entitled to a perfect one. The majority opinion will, unfortunately, fairly be read to say that the defendant is *269entitled to a jury of his choosing and to a perfect trial.
III. Victims’Bill of Rights
In 1990, the Victims’ Bill of Rights was added by the people of Arizona to the Arizona Constitution to “preserve and protect victims’ rights to justice and due process____” Ariz. Const. art. 2, § 2.1. The Bill guarantees, among other things, a victim’s right to “a speedy trial or disposition and prompt and final conclusion of the case after the conviction and sentence.” Ariz. Const. art. 2, § 2.1(10) (emphasis added).
In support of the constitutional amendment, the Arizona Legislature adopted the Victims’ Rights Implementation Act in 1991. A.R.S. §§ 13-4401 to -4437. The legislature, recognizing that innocent people suffer economic loss, personal injury, emotional scars of the soul, or even death as a result of criminal acts, aspired to afford crime victims “basic rights of respect, protection, participation and healing of their ordeals.” Laws 1991, Ch. 229, § 2 (legislative intent) (emphasis added). By its nature, a non-essential new trial prolongs the criminal justice process and precludes healing of the ordeal for the victim.
When the victims’ rights provisions and the legislative intent behind them are read in concert with Ariz. Const. art. 6, § 27, and the other applicable constitutional provisions, statutes, and rules, reversing a criminal conviction solely on non-prejudicial challenge for cause error grounds is oxymoronic.
In this case, not only will the scabs on the wounds of the victims (and of the families of the victims who are also the family of the defendant) be picked, but the wounds will be rendered anew. This will be done in the public view with a new trial and a second verdict from another fair and impartial jury.
Clearly, the right to a fair and impartial jury is a substantial right. The majority cites no basis for concluding that the defendant has been prejudiced. The defendant got a fair and impartial jury and that jury convicted him. With the reversal of the convictions in this case and remand to superior court for a new trial, the result is that the two victimized children will be dragged back into court to give the defendant (one victim’s half-brother and the other victim’s uncle) another fair trial before a different fair and impartial jury.
I do not see why a new trial before a totally different fair and impartial jury is necessary where the original fair and impartial jury was only metaphysically different from the fair and impartial jury that might have resulted if the trial judge had granted the challenge for cause.
Metaphysical prejudice is not enough to justify a new trial. A reversal should not result from error in the trial court that neither advantages the prosecution nor prejudices the defendant.
IV. Caveats
A caveat for trial judges: The trial judge was wrong in failing to grant the challenge for cause — flat wrong. There was no justification to deny the challenge to the venire juror. Trial judges should rule on challenges for cause so that all members of the venire panel are fair and impartial before the parties exercise their peremptory strikes.
Caveat for prosecutors: The trial judge was wrong — so was the prosecutor. The prosecutor should have joined in the defendant’s challenge to the venire juror or stipulated to the juror’s discharge. A prosecutor must not only assert the rights of the state, but protect the rights of the defendant when the defendant is being dealt with unfairly by the court. A prosecutor is not a mere adornment in the courtroom who can stand by deaf and dumb while the trial judge is committing error. If the trial judge persists in error after being advised by the prosecutor, the prosecutor should strike the juror with a peremptory challenge and state that on the record. If the prosecutor had done that here, the convictions would not be reversed.
V. Conclusion
I believe this court should affirm defendant’s convictions, reaffirm Encinas, adopt *270the court of appeals’ opinion, and overrule Wasko and its progeny. We should straighten out the erroneous U-turn taken by this court in 1977.