Court Opinion

ID: 9787788
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:24:25.804231+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:00.459466
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
concurring in the judgment only.
I do not join the majority’s opinion (even though I agree that allowing jury questioning does not violate a criminal defendant’s constitutional rights) largely because I consider its historical/policy analysis neither necessary nor appropriate, and because the majority extends its analysis to matters neither raised by the petitioners nor within our grant of certiorari. For my part, the constitutionality of the practice of permitting jurors to submit questions (as distinguished from the wisdom of doing so) is easily resolved by the language of the constitution itself; and because the practice is constitutionally permitted by court rule, it is not error at all, much less structural or constitutional error.
Despite challenges to the court of appeals judgments in these two cases on a number of grounds, both constitutional and evidentiary, we agreed to review solely the question whether permitting jury questioning in a criminal trial violates a defendant’s right to a fair trial, an impartial jury, and proof of his guilt beyond a reasonable. It is clear to me that nothing in the guaranties of due process and a jury trial in either the federal or state constitution speak, even remotely, to the matter of jury questioning. This is true whether or not questioning by jurors was permitted in various ways and at various times prior to adoption of these provisions, and whether or not questioning is considered more beneficial than counterproductive.
The defendants not only assert that the dangers inherent in this practice deprive them of an impartial jury trial but also that the error committed by implementing such a practice is by its very nature structural, requiring automatic reversal without consideration of particular prejudice, or at least error of constitutional magnitude, requiring reversal in the absence of a showing of harmlessness beyond any reasonable doubt. In support of their contention of structural error, both defendants cited as examples of these dangers various prejudicial applications of the pilot project’s guidelines, in these and a host of other cases. In determining that the practice of jury questioning authorized by this court is constitutional, the majority has necessarily determined that it is not error at all, much less structural error or error of constitutional magnitude. By addressing the propriety of particular applications of the guidelines in these defendants’ cases, the majority not only misperceives the import of the defendants’ arguments but expands its review beyond the grant of certiorari.
While I therefore do not consider it appropriate to reach the merits of individual applications of the guidelines in this appeal, in light of the majority’s opinion I feel compelled to make clear my view that questioning by the court, even if the questions have been submitted by jurors, remains subject to challenge for partiality. Although criminal trial courts have long been permitted to question witnesses, on their own motion or at the suggestion of a party, see People v. Adler, 629 P.2d 569 (Colo.1981); see also CRE 614, we have also cautioned against overintervention and courts becoming advo*862cates themselves. Adler, 629 P.2d at 573. I believe that questioning by the trial court, whether inspired by juror submissions or not, requires reversal where “the trial judge’s conduct so departed from the required impartiality as to deny the defendant a fair trial,” id.; see also People v. Ray, 640 P.2d 262, 264 (Colo.App.1981), and I believe Crim. P. 24(g)’s authorization for trial courts to limit questioning specifically supports this understanding.
I therefore concur only in the court’s judgment affirming the defendants’ convictions, and not in the majority’s opinion.