Court Opinion

ID: 9467076
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:37:55.078945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:08.848432
License: Public Domain

JAMES C. HILL, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the opinion by Judge Fay for our panel except for the observations in it *398referred to by Judge Roney in his special concurrence. As to them, I agree with both of may colleagues and concur in the resolution of any issue presented with Judge Roney.
I find that my personal preferences clash with what I conceive to be my judicial function. A special concurrence permits me, I trust, the luxury of pointing out the former.
From my personal experience as a trial lawyer and district judge I conclude, as does Judge Fay, that voir dire should, except in unusual situations, be conducted by the attorneys who are to try the case. In the case before us, counsel’s familiarity with the case made him alert to the need to excuse prospective jurors whose feelings would be adverse to one given to overindulgence in alcohol. The trial judge did not appreciate the need for what then appeared somewhat unrelated to a counterfeit money case. Defense counsel should have been permitted to find out the jurors’ attitudes towards drinking-even those on the panel who sincerely felt that they would, at all events, decide the case properly.1
Yet, whatever be my feelings in the matter, the law is clear. Rule 24(a) Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure gives the district judge the right and the responsibility of conducting the voir dire or of having it conducted by counsel. Bound as we are to apply the law to the case before us, we cannot conclude that there was anything wrong with this trial solely because the trial judge exercised this right and assumed this responsibility. When the judge does elect to conduct the voir dire, it should be as complete as if it had been properly done by trial counsel.

. Perhaps my personal preference derives from my having practiced with and conducted trials by members of a fine bar. Seldom have I seen the abuse of voir dire by lawyers described to me by other judges in other places.