Court Opinion

ID: 9845596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:24:53.715171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:15.326489
License: Public Domain

Barrow, J.,
dissenting.
The challenged venireman was herself a rape victim only nine and one-half months prior to the trial of this case. She, like the victim whose case she was to hear, was young, unmarried and worked as a waitress in a local bar. Her assailant had not been apprehended. She was still so affected by the crime that, at voir dire, she sought and was allowed to reveal her experience out of the presence of the other veniremen.
*224Reasonable doubt about a prospective juror’s impartiality must be resolved in a defendant’s favor because “ ‘it is not only important that justice should be impartially administered, but it should also flow through channels as free from suspicion as possible.’ ” Barker v. Commonwealth, 230 Va. 370, 375, 337 S.E.2d 729, 733 (1985) (quoting Wright v. Commonwealth, 73 Va. (32 Gratt.) 941, 943 (1879)); see also Mullis v. Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 564, 570, 351 S.E.2d 919, 923 (1987); Educational Books, Inc. v. Commonwealth, 3 Va. App. 384, 387, 349 S.E.2d 903, 906 (1986) . A sentence in this case, if based on a verdict of a jury which included the challenged venireman, would not, in my opinion, be “as free from suspicion as possible.”
My opinion is not based on a belief that victims of crime should not serve on criminal juries, or that a new per se disqualification should be created, or even that rape victims should never serve as jurors in rape trials. Instead, it is based on recognition that the exercise of a trial judge’s discretion is not confined to determining whether a prospective juror is telling the truth when he or she says that he or she can act impartially. Other facts, when available, should also be weighed. The ultimate test is not whether the prospective juror conscientiously believes that he or she can be impartial but whether the inclusion of the prospective juror on the jury would prevent the jury from being “as free from suspicion as possible.”
Considering the personal violence inherent in the crime involved, the relative immediacy of the victim’s experience, her apparent continued sensitivity to it, its lack of resolution and the other personal characteristics the prospective juror held in common with the victim, I would hold that the trial court abused its discretion in not disqualifying the prospective juror from service on the jury. See State v. Hatter, 381 N.W.2d 370, 372 (Iowa Ct. App. 1985); see also United States v. Poole, 450 F.2d 1082, 1083 (3d Cir. 1971); Commonwealth v. Davis, 282 Pa. Super. 51, 55, 413 A.2d 671, 672 (1980); Commonwealth v. Fulton, 271 Pa. Super. 430, 433, 413 A.2d 742, 743 (1979). I would, therefore, reverse and remand the proceeding for a new trial.