Court Opinion

ID: 9568617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:05:45.76945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:50:46.240306
License: Public Domain

Finney, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The majority opinion holds that the trial court’s failure to excuse venireman William F. Canty was error but not reversible error. In my view, the trial court’s error was reversible. The majority concedes that *361juror Canty’s responses on voir dire indicated that he was racially biased. Defense counsel moved to have Canty excused for cause. The trial court denied the motion, and appellant exercised a peremptory challenge to remove Canty from the jury.
My dissent is addressed to the question of whether the trial court’s refusal to excuse a prospective juror for cause constituted reversible error when such juror was peremptorily challenged and the defense used all of its allotted peremptory strikes.
There are several views on this issue. Some jurisdictions adhere to the holding that the use of a single peremptory strike against a challenged juror is not reversible error unless the accused was prejudiced. See State v. Springer, 172 Kan. 239, 239 P. (2d) 944 (1952). The decisive factor is whether or not the jury which tried the defendant was composed of impartial members. See Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 108 S. Ct. 2273, 101 L. Ed. (2d) 80, reh’g denied, 487 U.S. 1250, 109 S. Ct. 11, 101 L. Ed. (2d) 962 (1988). Other jurisdictions have determined that the prejudice requirement is met once defense counsel requests an additional peremptory challenge after exhausting the statutory number. See Berry v. State, 547 So. (2d) 969 (Fla. App. 1989).
Various jurisdictions have adopted a per se rule requiring reversal from the denial of a challenge for cause where a defendant’s peremptory challenges are ultimately exhausted. See United States v. Ricks, 776 F. (2d) 455 (4th Cir. 1985), on reh’g, 802 F. (2d) 731 (1986), cert. denied sub nom. King v. United States, 479 U.S. 1009, 107 S. Ct. 650, 93 L. Ed. (2d) 705 (1986); United States v. Allsup, 566 F. (2d) 68, 71 (9th Cir. 1977); see also Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U.S. 648, 107 S. Ct. 2045, 95 L. Ed. (2d) 622 (1987); State v. Bennett, 382 S.E. (2d) 322 (W. Va. 1989).
The majority adopts the view that denial of a single challenge for cause is not reversible error unless the accused was prejudiced. Relying upon Ross, the majority implies that after exhausting ten peremptory strikes, Green had to challenge for cause an additional venireman to meet the prejudice requirement. This analysis promulgates an additional prerequisite for the exercise of peremptory challenges which is contrary to South Carolina law.
*362Our case is distinguishable from Ross. In Ross, the United States Supreme Court stated that Oklahoma law granted defendants nine peremptory challenges qualified by the requirement that they be used to cure erroneous refusals to excuse jurors for cause. Thus, defendants in Oklahoma do not have the “absolute freedom to use a peremptory challenge as [they] wish.” Ross, 108 S. Ct. at 2279. Moreover, the Supreme Court declined to address the broader question of whether, “in the absence of Oklahoma’s limitation on the ‘right’ to exercise peremptory challenges, ‘a denial or impairment’ of the exercise of peremptory challenges occurs if the defendant uses one or more challenges to remove jurors who should have been excused for cause.” Ross, 108 S. Ct. at 2280 n. 4. This is the question facing this Court.
In my view, the per se rule of automatic reversal is more effective in insuring the accused a fair and impartial trial. The statutorily created right to peremptory challenges is one of the most important of the rights reserved to an accused, and it “long has served the selection of an impartial jury.” Pointer v. United States, 151 U.S. 396, 408, 14 S. Ct. 410, 414-15, 38 L. Ed. 208 (1894), overruled in part, Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S. Ct. 1712, 90 L. Ed. (2d) 69 (1986). The essential nature of the peremptory challenge is that it is one exercised without a reason stated, without inquiry and without being subject to the court’s control. (Emphasis added.) Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370, 378, 13 S. Ct. 136, 139, 36 L. Ed. 1011 (1892).2 While challenges for cause permit rejection of jurors on a narrowly specified, provable and legally cognizable basis of partiality, the peremptory challenge permits rejection for a real or imagined partiality that is less easily designated or demonstrated. Hayes v. State of Missouri, 120 U.S. 68, 70, 7 S. Ct. 350, 351, 30 L. Ed. 578 (1887). It is often exercised upon the “sudden impressions and unaccountable prejudices we are apt to conceive upon the bare looks and gestures of another.” Lewis, supra, 146 U.S. at 376, 13 S. Ct. at 138.
South Carolina Code § .14-7-1110 provides that in murder cases, the accused is entitled to ten peremptory challenges. In *363the instant case, the defense used one of his peremptory challenges to cure the erroneous for-cause ruling of the trial court, which effectively reduced this defendant’s legislative right from ten challenges to nine challenges.
I would hold that it is reversible error, even without a showing of prejudice to the defendant, to force a defendant to use peremptory challenges on jurors who should be excused for cause since this has the effect of abridging the statutory right to exercise peremptory challenges.

 This right is limited by Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L. Ed. (2d) 69 (1986), which restricts the use of peremptory challenges on racial grounds.