Court Opinion

ID: 9717889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:12:15.483923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:13:51.731705
License: Public Domain

STEADMAN, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
We have often taken cognizance of the “broad discretion” of the trial judge in conducting voir dire to uncover possible juror biases, holding that reversal should occur only where “the record reveals an abuse of discretion coupled with substantial prejudice to the defendant.” Matthews v. United States, 599 A.2d 1389 (D.C.1991) (quoting Boertje v. United States, 569 A.2d 586, 592 (D.C.1989)). Here, the trial court first asked whether any jurors had any affiliation with law enforcement, and, with respect to the thirteen jurors who responded, questioned them individually as to the general nature of that affiliation. He followed that immediately with the general questions about favoring or disfavoring testimony by police officers.
Given our highly-deferential standard of review, I cannot say that the trial court under these particular circumstances was absolutely required to allow further inquiry at pain of reversal.1 Furthermore, appellants here made no showing whatever of any prej*598udice in fact or any analysis of the actual outcome of the jury selection process.2 I cannot agree that, in light of our repeated assertion of the need to show “substantial prejudice,” any limitation on voir dire can be treated as the equivalent of a direct interference with the exercise of the right to peremptory challenges and analyzed as such for purposes of reversal.3

. As we noted in Murray v. United States, 532 A.2d 120, 123 (D.C.1987), it may have been the "better practice” to delve further into a juror’s relationship with law enforcement. However, I do not understand that case to have set an absolute minimum level of inquiry or to mandate that the questions as to partiality toward or against testimony by police officers be addressed individually to each responding juror.

. It appears to me from the record before us that only two of the jurors responding to the law enforcement questions eventually served. One had answered that she was a legal secretary and the other that his “father’s second wife’s brother-in-law” was a lawyer, neither of which response would seem to mandate further inquiry. The juror whose daughter was with the local police department served as an alternate and was apparently excused at the end of the trial prior to deliberations. The other ten who responded were stricken for cause or through peremptories or were not reached. So here, as in Murray,. where a law enforcement-related juror was stricken, it would appear that the actual outcome ”eliminat[ed] any chance that participation by [a law-enforcement-related] juror might have prejudiced appellant.” 532 A.2d at 124.

. Indeed, the issue of proper appellate analysis of reversibility in cases of asserted trial court interference with peremptory challenges has been raised in an appeal now pending before the en banc court, as the majority points out in footnote 8.
Given the reversal on the ground of error in voir dire, I like the majority do not reach appellants’ other arguments on this appeal. However, I might add that I harbor considerable doubt whether either appellant here may on appeal complain of the voir dire process. A trial judge's obligation to allow further questioning is dependent upon a request by a defendant and thus in declining such a request, the judge commits "error” only as to that defendant. Indeed, even where a trial court ruling is “error" in the generic sense, there would seem to be merit in a requirement that each defendant feeling prejudiced by the error should separately make that fact known. A claim of error asserted by all defendants may more tellingly suggest to the trial court the possible merit in the claim and the necessity for careful consideration.