Court Opinion

ID: 9479114
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:08:50.859036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:50.323496
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I must dissent. The majority holds that the failure to make an objection to the improper seating of a juror who was peremptorily struck was untimely and amounted to a waiver of that strike. Further, no prejudice was shown. The majority rests its holding on United States v. Cole, 796 F.2d 380 (11th Cir.1986). With all due respect, Cole does not and should not control this case. The majority fails to address the test in Cole for a waiver to be found. The test as stated is that there must have been a lack of due diligence by counsel in the failure to object. The majority instead chooses to focus on the necessary finding of prejudice once waiver is found.
The analysis by the majority fails both on the waiver of objection issue and on the prejudice issue. Under the due diligence requirement of Cole, the Bileckis’ attorney did not waive the right to object to the improper juror. Under the facts of this case, making the objection at the time the jury was polled was enough to preserve the objection. Thus, I would remand for a new trial on this basis alone. But further, the majority focuses upon a prejudice requirement that is not and should not be the law. Such a requirement in this situation defeats the policy behind peremptory challenges.

*1132
Due Diligence

In reaching the plain error rule, the majority ignores the test, as stated in Cole, to decide if there has been a waiver of objection:
... it is the duty of the parties to advise the court of any errors in seating of struck jurors before the jury is impaneled. If the defendant has not exercised sufficient diligence to perceive the error and call it to the court’s attention in timely fashion, prejudice must be shown to obtain a new trial.
796 F.2d at 381 (emphasis added). Under the majority holding, the inquiry ended because counsel did not discover the error until the trial was over. The effect of this ruling is that defendants lost the right to their statutorily allotted number of peremptory strikes regardless of who was at fault in the error. Using a requirement of due diligence, on the other hand, prevents this all-or-nothing application. An attorney concededly cannot claim an absolute right to depend entirely on the court to seat the jury properly. But he or she preserves all of the client’s rights as long as due diligence is exercised, although there was a serious mistake in the seating of the juror.
Applying the due diligence test of Cole to our facts, I follow the trial judge (magistrate by consent of the parties) in finding due diligence on the part of the Bileckis’ attorney, and thus the situation is readily distinguishable from Cole. When seating the jury, the deputy read the list out loud, excluding the members who had been struck peremptorily, while Bileckis’ counsel followed along. Bileckis’ counsel then by the court’s words had no reason to suspect an improper juror. The error occurred when a Mr. Holt, who properly had been struck, went into the jury box in place of a Ms. Vasquez when her name was called by the court as “Mr. Vasquez.” Not only did the court refer to Vasquez as a “Mr. Vasquez,” but also Ms. Vasquez’ first name is “Lupe,” a name that defense counsel could readily have assumed was a male’s name. Counsel then was not put on notice. After the name was called off incorrectly by the court and no one responded, counsel saw Mr. Holt take a place in the box. Absent a non-requisite memory for names and faces counsel had no reason to suspect that the wrong person was in the box or that “Mr. Vasquez” was supposed to be a female. Even the majority opinion admits that we do not require the attorneys to memorize the faces of those chosen and those excused.
In Cole, the counsel had no like excuse. Defense counsel should have become aware of the improper juror during the jury selection process or during the trial, but he did not. After each side made its peremptory strikes in Cole, the court read correctly the list of jurors to counsel to check for errors. A few minutes later the court again read aloud the list of selected jurors so that they could take their seats in the jury box. The court, however, this time mistakenly failed to call a Ms. Platt’s name, so that one of the jurors who had been peremptorily struck by defendant remained in the jury box — a Mr. Wiggs. Simply checking the names on the list as the court read them would have put counsel on notice that a mistake had been made.
Defense counsel in Cole explained that he did not learn of the error because he was taking notes while the names were being called out. The court correctly found this excuse inadequate. It noted that the improper juror was the opposite sex of the correct juror, so that even if defense counsel was distracted at the time of the roll call, he had four days of trial to realize that there was an extra man on the jury panel.1 The court had grounds to find a lack of diligence and therefore a waiver.
A critical factor in this case, not present in Cole, is that the trial judge made a specific factfinding that the error occurred through no fault of anyone, and this finding means there was a finding of no lack of diligence on the part of defense counsel. *1133Further, while in both cases the error was not brought to the court’s attention until after the verdict was returned, Bileckis’ counsel was the one who discovered the error during polling, and he immediately informed the judge. The judge in Cole, on the other hand, had to inform the non-diligent counsel of the error after the jury was polled.
I must conclude that the Cole test of due diligence does not expose a lack of diligence by Bileckis’ counsel in this case. Even though Bileckis’ counsel took an active role in the process of jury selection, a venireman was misseated through an administrative mistake of the court with an uncalled person presuming to take a seat on the jury. Because the error was justifiably found by the trial judge to be through no fault of anyone, including defense counsel, the right to object was not waived.

Prejudice

The majority rests its holding on a required showing of prejudice under Cole once it is determined that the right to object is waived. 796 F.2d at 381. The majority, as well as the court in Cole, skirts the fundamental problem with this prejudice requirement. The majority disposes of any possible problems by stating that the plain error rule adequately addresses them. While that might be true in a situation in which the plain error rule typically has been applied, using it in the peremptory strike context defeats the very nature of the peremptory strike right.
Unlike the majority and Cole, I would not have prejudice as any part of the test. See State v. Thompson, 68 Ariz. 386, 206 P.2d 1037, 1038 (1949) (no showing of prejudice required for the court to grant a new trial once it was determined that at least one juror had been peremptorily struck); Sherman v. State, 2 Ga.App. 148, 58 S.E. 393 (1907) (same). As the court explained in State v. Thompson:
It should be remembered that a ‘peremptory challenge’ is an arbitrary and capricious species of challenge to a certain number of jurors without showing any cause.... It is not essential to such a challenge that any bias or prejudice on the part of a juror be shown_ Defendant’s statutory right to challenge ... peremptorily is a right of rejection and not of selection.
206 P.2d at 1039 (citations omitted). While the court in Thompson was aware that reversal should not be mandated for technical errors, it was sensitive to the defendant’s statutory right to peremptory strikes without having to show cause. Id. at 1040.
The authority relied upon by the majority and the district court is a slender reed. The Texas cases, of course, are not controlling since procedure is at issue. In any event, the 1975 Texas case, Ascosta v. State, 522 S.W.2d 528 (Tex.Crim.App.1975), involved the clerk calling the precise and correct name of a juror who had been challenged, and no objection was raised. The refusal of a new trial in that case was the correct decision. But the facts are critically different from the miscall in this case. Admittedly the earlier, 1941, Texas case is more nearly in point to this case, but the issue was considered only casually.
The First Circuit case, Levesque, treated as analogous in the majority opinion, involved a minor error far removed from a challenged juror being seated. In that case a second alternative juror was seated instead of the first alternative. Note that both were qualified jurors, neither had been made the object of a challenge. This casual error is remote, indeed, from the seating of a challenged juror by calling the wrong sex, with a challenged juror, perhaps eager to serve and perhaps even eager to convict, taking a seat in the jury box even though his name was never called.
When a defendant can show that a venireman is biased or prejudiced, that venireman will be struck for cause. The remaining veniremen are technically legally fit to serve. The peremptory challenge then gives counsel a further step in choosing the jury that will actually hear the case. The attorney is by law given the right to strike a fixed number of veniremen who, although legally qualified, have the personality, educational background, vocation, or any other factors the accused and *1134counsel see as relevant to a possible bias or hostility to the client’s case. Bileckis’ counsel was entitled by law to strike Mr. Holt. By requiring a showing of prejudice, the majority is reading a justification into a peremptory challenge when the challenge requires no justification.
The majority expresses concern as to a possible ramification if there is no required showing of prejudice. Defendants could be able to gamble on a favorable verdict, and only when the verdict is unfavorable, raise the objection that the jury was improper. 796 F.2d at 381. The concern is valid, but it assumes the defendant knows of the error. The correct use of the waiver rule, however, is a complete remedy for this concern. Where there is evidence that counsel knew of the error but failed to bring it to the court’s attention until it was too late to correct the error, it can properly be said that the defendant knowingly and intentionally waived the right to object to the improper juror. Counsel clearly then would have failed to meet the due diligence requirement.
Under our facts, there is simply no evidence at all of any improper role played by Bileckis’ counsel. The trial judge made a specific finding to the contrary which is not challenged in any way.

Conclusion

The trial judge correctly found that a properly challenged venireman took a seat on the jury that convicted the Bileckis with no fault on the part of the Bileckis or their counsel. Simply because, reasonably lacking knowledge, Bileckis’ counsel failed to object until after the verdict was returned did not amount to a waiver. No one in the courtroom knew of the error, except perhaps the juror who decided to sit on the jury although he was not called. Counsel used due diligence in the seating and selection of the jury panel. Further, prejudice was inherent in negating the peremptory challenge. The rights of the accuseds demand a new trial before a properly chosen jury in this criminal prosecution.

. In the case before us, also a male was seated in the jury box in place of a female. The failure to detect the error is fully understandable, however, because contrary to Cole, the Vasquez name was called as a male. Further, Ms. Vasquez' first name, if it was mentioned in court, is commonly masculine as well as feminine.