Court Opinion

ID: 9673235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:08:53.530684+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:21.061719
License: Public Domain

LAURA DENVIR STITH, Judge,
dissenting.
We concur in the basic principle invoked by the majority that, in order to preserve a claim that the trial judge improperly limited voir dire, counsel usually must inform the trial judge of the areas of necessary questioning which have not been covered, and request permission to ask necessary questions in those areas. We disagree with the majority’s application of this principle to the facts of this case, however, and with its determination that this principle requires us to affirm the judgment below.
As discussed infra, the record below demonstrates that the trial judge did not limit voir dire to 30 additional minutes following the luncheon recess because she believed that plaintiffs counsel had concluded necessary questioning or was proceeding too slowly. Rather, she limited voir dire because she wanted a jury pool available by 2:30 p.m. so that the jurors could sit on another case. Because the reason she limited the voir dire was extraneous to the proceedings, it would have been futile for counsel to provide the judge with a list of unasked questions, for she did not limit his questioning because she believed he had no more necessary areas to cover but rather because of matters which no offer of a list of specific questions could have changed. This fact is made clear by the fact that she agreed he could submit the unasked questions after the jury had been dismissed. She was well aware that at that point, even had he presented a list of necessary questions, it would have been too late to ask them. Accordingly, we believe that the issue of an improper limitation on voir dire was adequately preserved, and that on the facts of this case it requires remand for a new trial.
Because our approach to this case requires consideration of certain additional facts concerning the reason the judge wanted voir dire concluded by 2:30 p.m., we highlight those facts as they arose in the context of voir dire, and then address the legal issues raised by the appellants.

I. EVENTS TRANSPIRING DURING VOIR DIRE

The jury venire was impaneled and sworn at about 9:30 a.m. on the morning of trial. The judge conducted a voir dire examination of the jury venire until 11:00 a.m., at which point the parties struck several venireper-sons for cause. Plaintiffs’ counsel then initiated his voir dire. At 12:10 p.m. the judge excused the potential jurors for lunch. She then told counsel that there were:

25 jurors left over from [another] case. And I’ve asked that they return at 2:30. I want as close as possible to be finished with the voir dire in this case by that time. And I realize Defense Counsel hasn’t had a chance to ask any questions. And I guess Plaintiffs’ Counsel has had about a little over an hour at this point. So we need to move along.

(emphasis added). When counsel for plaintiff said “I’ve got quite a bit more, your Honor,” the judge responded:
*294Well, you need to expedite it and move along so that we’ll — I’m not sure that we have a jury out of this panel yet. And I mean they haven’t — all the questions haven’t been asked obviously. And I do not want people hanging around the courthouse waiting for voir dire. So I would ask that you expedite the matter,
(emphasis added). Counsel said he would go as rapidly as he could. Before the jury even returned to the courtroom after lunch, however, the trial judge said:
THE COURT: Just so that we will know, ground rules, Plaintiffs will conclude their voir dire in about a half an hour. And then Defense will each be given an opportunity to do the voir dire.
MR. JOHNSON [PLAINTIFFS’ COUNSEL]: Your Honor, I won’t be able to finish my voir dire in half an hour.

THE COURT: Well, you need to because we’re going to conclude that and allow the Defendants to proceed at that time.

MR. JOHNSON: Your Honor, I would like to submit the questions that I would want to ask at some point that I’m not going to be allowed to ask because I think I am going to be deprived of a fair trial if I am not allowed to do complete and full voir dire for my client. So at some point, if you cut me off, I would like to have the opportunity to present to you all of the questions which I’m not going to be able to ask so they can be in the record.
THE COURT: You can make a record. Return the jury to the courtroom.
(emphasis added). When the jury returned to the courtroom, plaintiffs’ counsel continued his questioning for about thirty minutes. Towards the end of his questioning, plaintiffs’ counsel asked the jury venirepersons about their opinions on the number of lawsuits and the size of damage awards, stating that one of the jurors had:
brought up a subject which I actually have several questions on, but I’m not going to go into all of them. But I want to ask you this question. •
How many of you feel the same as [another venireperson] about medical malpractice cases or about lawsuits in general, that there is too many, that the jury verdicts or settlements that you’ve heard of are outrageous, or that some of the facts you’ve heard of are outrageous? How many of you feel that way?
(emphasis added). Several jury venireper-sons raised their hands, and plaintiffs’ counsel questioned some of them individually. He asked them all whether they would be able “to set those feelings aside and be totally fair to Jim and to Larry and to us who are presenting the case on their behalf.” All but one person (later stricken for cause) indicated that they could do so.
Plaintiffs’ counsel then asked two more questions, the last of which required the venire persons to state whether they thought they were persons the plaintiffs would want to serve on the jury. Counsel questioned those who indicated views on this issue, and asked the remaining jurors by rows if they thought they were persons whom the plaintiffs would want to serve. He then stopped questioning sua sponte and stated:

Your Honor, as you know, I do have other questions, but I’ll just submit those to you later. I’m not really concluded, but I am concluding because of the time constraint.

(emphasis added). The trial judge then turned voir dire questioning over to counsel for the defendant doctors and gave them about forty-five minutes for questions.
While defendants did not object below, and do not object in this court, to this limitation on their voir dire time, at the close of voir dire plaintiffs’ counsel again indicated he felt his voir dire was unduly limited, although he did not then submit a list of unasked questions. Instead, he asked the judge for permission to submit on the following day a list of the questions he would have asked the jury venirepersons. The trial judge accepted plaintiffs’ counsel’s suggestion.
A few minutes later, when making his challenges for cause, plaintiffs’ counsel again brought up the issue of limitations on voir dire, stating:
First, for the record, Plaintiff has not been given an opportunity to full — full opportunity to voir dire this panel, and as such the *295Plaintiffs are not in a position to appropriately exercise their challenges for cause and have been hampered in their ability to determine which of these people should be challenged for cause.
Counsel then made certain challenges for cause, and concluded:
FinaEy, your Honor, we have not had the opportunity to develop the information necessary to challenge all of those who raised their hands with regard to the question concerning their opinions about medical mal practice litigation, personal injury, and product and other type of litigation in general; those who felt that there were too many frivolous suits, those who felt there should be a cap on recoveries. We did not have the opportunity to make inquiry of all of those folks, and, as a result, I’m sure there are some of them that should be stricken or that I should have good cause to strike that I simply do not have the information before me to do so.
While counsel thus directed the court to the damage-related areas in which he still believed questioning was required, he did not submit a list of questions the following day as he had been granted permission to do. Even had he done so, however, it is unclear what purpose this would have served, as the jury had already been selected and trial had begun.

II. THE TRIAL JUDGE ABUSED HER DISCRETION IN LIMITING THE TIME FOR VOIR DIRE

While Missouri courts have not previously specifically addressed the parameters of the trial court’s authority to impose a fixed time limit on voir dire, we agree with the majority that the basic rules governing voir dire are well-settled and apply to the issue before us. We also agree with the majority that the total time given counsel for voir dire was not so short as to be per se unreasonable. To the contrary, the voir dire as a whole started at 9:30 a.m. and did not conclude until the middle of the afternoon. Certainly, in most eases, this could be an adequate period for voir dire, and it would not be an abuse of discretion to limit voir dire to this amount of time, at least where counsel was told at the outset that such a limitation would be imposed. Indeed, voir dire is often completed in considerably less time. The amount of time allowed was not on its face unreasonable.
We disagree with the majority to the extent it implies that the reasonableness of the time given for voir dire can be determined by its length alone, without consideration of the full context of the situation in which the voir dire occurs. Different legal issues and different jury pools may require vastly different voir dire examinations. Plaintiffs argue that this case warranted a lengthier voir dire because it centered on complex medical malpractice issues and because a large number of the jury venirepersons had some connection to the health care industry in Columbia, where the trial was held.
Equally importantly, they note, the first hour and one-half of voir dire was conducted by the court, not by plaintiffs’ counsel. Counsel only began his voir dire at 11 a.m., and had continued for about one hour and ten minutes at the time the parties broke for lunch. No objection had been made by opposing counsel that voir dire was moving too slowly or unnecessary questions were being asked, and the judge had not asked counsel to move along his questioning or indicated that he was asking unnecessary questions. Neither had she indicated prior to the lunch break that she might need some of the jurors for another panel later that afternoon, nor indeed had she indicated that there would be any limitations on voir dire at all.
Indeed, prior to trial the court and parties discussed that because of the anticipated length of the trial the initial 60-member panel might not be adequate and that the start of the trial might have to be delayed so that a second group of jurors could be called in and questioned. As the majority notes, at the pretrial conference, the court had asked, “Are you going to have witnesses ready to go on the 23rd in the event we get a jury selected before the end of the day?” Counsel had answered affirmatively, and in her pretrial order the court noted that counsel had said that they would be ready to proceed with the presentation of evidence on the opening day of trial when the jury selection *296was completed. She also noted, however, that she usually concludes her “daily sessions between 5 and 6:30 p.m.” Contrary to the majority, we do not believe that counsel should have realized on these facts that the judge would end voir dire at around 2:30 p.m., or that she would not permit voir dire to fill the entire first day if necessary.
In any event, it was only at lunchtime, in the middle of voir dire, that counsel first learned his voir dire would be limited to 30 more minutes. At that point, it was too late to tighten up the questions he had already asked, and in any event most of the questioning had been done by the judge, not by counsel. For these reasons, looking at the length of voir dire already completed does not provide the total picture. We find it at least equally relevant that counsel was given only 30 minutes notice to complete his questioning. A number of eases from other jurisdictions cited by the majority indicate that had that been the total period allowed for voir dire it would in such a case have been unreasonable on its face.
We also agree with plaintiffs that we cannot consider the reasonableness of the limitations on voir dire without considering the rationale for those limitations. It is within the judge’s discretion to indicate to counsel that the judge believes that voir dire needs to be concluded soon and that counsel should proceed accordingly or finish his questioning by a certain time. In deciding to issue such a direction, it would not be inappropriate for the judge to consider matters such as that, if voir dire were completed soon, the jurors would be free to sit on another panel in another ease later that same day. Efficient administration of justice is a worthy goal. It cannot take precedence, however, over the need to see that the parties in the case before the court have an adequate time for voir dire. This means that such a limitation on voir dire should not be issued if the only reason for doing so is that the jurors are needed elsewhere, nor should it be done without reasonable notice.
Here, the judge herself neither suggested that the reason she was limiting voir dire was that she believed that all necessary questions had been asked, nor that she thought counsel was being repetitious, nor had she previously cautioned counsel to speed up his questioning, nor indicated that his manner of questioning was unduly slow or was causing unnecessary delay. Yet, she nonetheless told counsel after lunch that she knew that all needed questions had not yet been asked, but that plaintiff nonetheless needed to finish voir dire in 30 minutes. When told by counsel that he could not do so, she replied, “Well, you need to because we’re going to conclude that and allow the Defendants to proceed at that time.” So far as the record shows, it thus appears that she did so solely for reasons extraneous to the case before her; more specifically, the fact that another jury panel was to be formed at 2:30 p.m. that afternoon and the judge wanted members of her panel who did not serve on the jury to be available at 2:30 p.m.
While a trial judge has considerable discretion in controlling the nature and extent of voir dire, that discretion does not extend to limiting voir dire in so severe a manner, without reasonable notice that voir dire would be limited in time, and for reasons which are not related to whether voir dire has been adequate but rather are based on matters extraneous to the case before the court, all of which occurred here. We therefore would find the trial court erred in limiting voir dire as she did.

III. A SHOWING OF PREJUDICE IS REQUIRED

We now reach the question of whether this error requires reversal. The parties dispute whether appellant must show prejudice in order to show reversible error as a result of a ruling on a matter, such as voir dire, the limits of which are committed to the trial judge’s discretion.
Plaintiffs argue that they are not required to show prejudice and that a party in a civil matter simply needs to show he or she was prohibited from asking a legitimate question on voir dire, in order to be entitled to a new trial. In support, plaintiffs cite us to Ivy v.
*297Hawk, 878 S.W.2d 442 (Mo. banc 1994).1 In Ivy, the trial judge erroneously refused to permit plaintiff to ask prospective jurors “the insurance question.” Defendant argued that in order to obtain a new trial, plaintiffs were required to show that prejudice resulted from the failure to ask this question. Ivy disagreed. In so doing, it noted:
The denial of the right to ask a proper “insurance question” is an issue of law_ A trial court has no discretion when ruling on an issue of law in a motion for new trial_ The trial court, therefore, should have granted the plaintiffs’ motion for new trial because they submitted a proper “insurance question.”
Id. at 445 (citations omitted).
Ivy thus held that, because plaintiff had an unqualified right to ask the insurance question, the denial of that right was automatically prejudicial. Id. Ivy carefully distinguished this situation from the situations cited by the Ivy defendant in which plaintiffs were required to show prejudice when the trial court refused to let plaintiffs ask follow-up questions after they had asked the insurance question. It noted that, unlike the insurance question, whether to allow such follow-up questions is committed to the trial court’s discretion. To be entitled to a new trial on matters committed to the trial court’s discretion, it indicated, one must thus show prejudice resulting from that abuse of discretion. Id. at 446.

IV. APPLICATION OF LEGAL PRINCIPLES TO THIS CASE

Here, unlike in Ivy, plaintiffs were not denied permission to ask a specific approved question or to question in a specific approved area. Thus, normally, the general rule would apply that plaintiffs must show that prejudice resulted from the alleged abuse of discretion. State v. Gray, 887 S.W.2d 369, 382 (Mo. banc 1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1042, 115 S.Ct. 1414, 131 L.Ed.2d 299 (1995); State v. Parker, 886 S.W.2d 908, 920-21 (Mo. banc 1994), cert. denied, 514 U.S. 1098, 115 S.Ct. 1827, 131 L.Ed.2d 748 (1995); State v. Crockett, 419 S.W.2d 22, 26 (Mo.1967); State v. Robinson, 831 S.W.2d 667, 669 (Mo.App.1992); State v. Carter, 771 S.W.2d 844, 845 (Mo.App.1989); State v. Norton, 681 S.W.2d 497, 498 (Mo.App.1984). In a situation like this, of course, it would be difficult if not impossible to directly show that the improper questions affected the verdict, for the jurors cannot be questioned about their deliberations.2 Reversible error can therefore adequately be shown by identifying for the trial judge specific proper areas of relevant questioning that counsel still needs to ask about and which have not been adequately covered by prior questions. The rationale for this requirement is clear: after hearing counsel’s specific desired questions, the trial judge might correct his or her error and permit questioning in the desired areas. We agree with the majority that this is in keeping with Missouri’s longstanding rule that “the trial *298court must be given the opportunity to correct error while correction is still possible.” Douglass v. Safire, 712 S.W.2d 373, 374 (Mo. banc 1986). See also State v. Dixon, 717 S.W.2d 847, 848 (Mo. banc 1986). The rule allows trial courts to identify mistakes in time to correct them, perhaps obviating an appeal.3
While Missouri has not had occasion to apply these principles in the context of a ease like this one, Texas has done so in Thacker v. State, 889 S.W.2d 380 (Tx.Ct.App.1994), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 810, 116 S.Ct. 57, 133 L.Ed.2d 21 (1995). Counsel in Thacker had filed a list of questions with the trial court at the close of his voir dire and stated that he would have asked “at least some of them.” Id. at 390. On appeal, the court found no error. It refused to scrutinize the list of questions, stating “[t]his Court does not have the time nor the duty to peruse the extensive list of suggested questions in order to determine which ones defense counsel was prevented from asking, if any, and then guess which of those he wanted to ask.” Id.
While we do not agree with Thacker that a specific list of questions is necessary, we do agree with the majority that in the usual case counsel must direct the court’s attention to the areas in which voir dire has not yet been completed. Here, however, the judge specifically agreed to counsel’s query whether he could submit unasked questions the day after the jury was chosen. In light of the fact that, prior to publication of this opinion, there has been no clear authority so requiring, we disagree with the majority that it was unreasonable for plaintiffs’ counsel to believe that he could preserve this issue for review even without specifically directing the judge, prior to the close of voir dire, to the areas of questioning which he believed were improperly limited.4 Indeed, our decision in this case is the first time that any Missouri court has advised counsel as to the procedure counsel should follow if the trial judge unduly limits the time for voir dire.
Equally importantly, the rationale for requiring submission of a list of unasked questions does not apply here. The purpose of submitting such a list is to inform the judge of relevant questions which have not been asked, so that the judge will have a basis on which to determine whether additional questioning is required in order to provide counsel with the information needed to fairly pick a jury. This is similar to the rationale for requiring an attorney to make an offer of proof. Such an offer serves two purposes:
(1) to inform the court and opposing counsel of the substance of the excluded evidence in order that they may take appropriate action; and (2) to provide the appellate court with a record with which to determine whether the exclusion was erroneous and whether it created prejudice to the appellant.
State v. Bowlin, 850 S.W.2d 116, 118 (Mo.App.1993).
In this case, however, the trial judge did not limit questioning to only 30 additional minutes because she believed counsel had already adequately inquired into necessary areas. She did so because she wanted to make the unpicked jurors available to sit on another venire — -a reason completely extraneous to the case before the court. This purpose is underscored by the fact that she gave counsel permission to submit a list of questions after the close of voir dire, for it would be self-evident that submission of unasked questions at that point would not assist the court in deciding whether sufficient voir dire had been conducted.
For this reason, we conclude that submission of a list of unasked questions would have been futile, and therefore should not be required by this Court in order to preserve the limitations on voir dire for appellate review. *299We disagree with the majority’s conclusion that under Missouri law futility does not provide a basis for failing to object or make an offer of proof. To the contrary, numerous cases find futility does serve just such a purpose.
A case addressing this issue which is strikingly similar to the facts of this case is Hyde v. Butsch, 861 S.W.2d 819 (Mo.App.1993). In that case, the appellate court recognized that as a general rule courts will not consider an objection to the offer of evidence preserved in the absence of an offer of proof. It recognized that there are limited exceptions to this rule, however, such as where such an offer would be futile. Id. at 820-21. It found the case before it to be just such as case. There, as here, the case concerned improper limitation of time — in Hyde, however, the limitation was on the time for cross-examination rather than for voir dire. The trial court asked the jurors if staying past 5:00 p.m. would create any problems, and one juror said that it would. At 4:55, the court told plaintiff she had to complete her cross-examination in five minutes, and she objected. A few minutes later the court stopped the cross-examination, and counsel again objected. The witness, a doctor, indicated he could not return the following Monday, but the court dismissed him anyway, stating to plaintiffs counsel, “we can make the record at your convenience but the witness will step down.” Id. at 821. Unlike here, plaintiff then told the court the specific areas of questions she had been unable to reach, but she did not make an offer of proof as to them, as is normally required in such a situation. Following a jury verdict for defendant, the trial court realized he had erred in limiting plaintiffs cross-examination and granted a new trial.
On appeal, the defendant argued that plaintiff had failed to preserve this issue for review because she had failed to make an offer of proof as to what testimony would have been adduced on further cross-examination. Hyde found that plaintiff had nonetheless preserved the issue for review, stating:
In addition, it is apparent from the record that an offer of proof would not have affected the trial court’s decision to ter-mínate plaintiff’s cross-examination of Dr. Dodd.... A party is not required to make an offer of proof if it is obvious that the offer would have been futile.
Id. (emphasis added).
Bowlin, supra, makes a similar point in a ease which is also like this case in important respects. In Bowlin, a defense witness, for religious reasons, refused to take an oath before testifying. The trial court therefore refused to let the witness testify. On its own motion, the appellate court noted that defense counsel failed to make an offer of proof of what the witness would have said had he been permitted to testify, and considered whether the issue had been properly preserved in light of this omission. The court held:

an offer of proof is not required when it would be futile and would serve no purpose. Here, it appears that an offer of proof would have been a useless gesture because the basis for exclusion dealt solely with the matter of the oath to be administered and had nothing to do with the content of the witnesses’ testimony.

Bowlin, 850 S.W.2d at 118 (emphasis added).
Of course, this is precisely the situation in this case. Additional questioning was denied not because of the content of the additional questions or of the questions already asked, but because of the extraneous issue of trying to dismiss the jurors in time for them to serve on another panel. There would thus be no point in giving the judge a list of areas of questioning, for that would not have affected the ruling, and we have adequate evidence on appeal to determine whether the ruling was erroneous without consideration of the specific questions still to be asked.
For these reasons, we find that the issue is adequately preserved despite the failure to identify specific additional areas of questioning for such an action would have been futile. Accordingly, we would reverse and remand for a new trial.
LOWENSTEIN, ELLIS and EDWIN H. SMITH, JJ., concur.

. Plaintiffs also cite us to Brines v. Cibis, 784 S.W.2d 201, 204 (Mo.App.1989). It found the plaintiff therein entitled to a new trial without proving prejudice only because unqualified jurors were seated on the jury, however. While plaintiffs in this case did argue at the time they made their challenges for cause that they believed they may have had' additional challenges for cause if they had been permitted to further question the jury about issues such as medical malpractice and the size of damage awards, they offered no support for this argument in their motion for new trial or on appeal other than three juror affidavits which state that other jurors considered the costs of medical insurance and health care in determining the size of the award. We cannot consider these juror affidavits, however. While plaintiffs say they are not using these affidavits to impeach Ae jury’s verdict, Aere is no other way to describe Aeir attempted use. Moreover, defendants properly objected to Aeir use for Ais purpose below. As a result, we may not consider Ae affidavits in reaching our decision. Jurors speak through Aeir verAct, and Aeir deliberations may not be used to impeach the jury’s verdict. See State v. Babb, 680 S.W.2d 150, 152 (Mo. banc 1984); McPherson v. David, 805 S.W.2d 260, 263 (Mo.App.1991).
In any event, we are cited to no authority holding Aat Ae beliefs of these jurors as to Ae effects of large damage awards would have provided a basis for challenging these jurors for cause where, as here, Ae jurors who served all generally indicated Aat Aey could set aside their beliefs and reach a decision based on Ae law. RaAer, it is asserted, knowledge of the jurors’ beliefs would have made counsel’s peremptory strikes more informed. Brines Aerefore does not control here.

. See discussion supra, note 1.

. This is similar to the rationale requiring offers of proof to be made to preserve error when a trial court erroneously sustains an objection to proffered evidence. Great American Acceptance Corp. v. Zwego, 902 S.W.2d 859, 865 (Mo.App.1995). As voir dire questions are not evidence, the offer of proof rules are not directly applicable. Nonetheless, the same principles that underlie offers of proof apply to voir dire and other aspects of the trial.

. In particular, one presumes that if the court had indicated that a later submission of a list of questions would not be acceptable, then counsel would have identified unasked questions for the court prior to the close of voir dire.