Court Opinion

ID: 9759495
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:18:23.384201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:02.291101
License: Public Domain

LEIBSON, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the Majority Opinion as originally written. However, the modification is unnecessary and confusing.
The modification may be misinterpreted as changing the law to require that a party who has been improperly denied a challenge for cause must somehow prove that he needed and would have used more peremptory challenges before he can complain that the trial judge erred in refusing his challenge for cause.
The Modification to the Opinion suggests that the record here was sufficient to prove that more peremptory challenges were needed because two persons whom the defendant attempted to challenge for cause remained on the jury after the peremptory challenges were exhausted.
This leaves the mistaken inference that, had the defendant been able to utilize his peremptory challenges to exclude all who were unsuccessfully challenged for cause, the error in failing to sustain challenges for cause would be considered harmless.
There is no rule that a party must introduce proof that he needs more peremptory challenges before he can complain that the error in refusing to sustain a challenge for cause was prejudicial. At least there has been no such rule until now. A more correct premise, and one closer to the truth, is *835that when a party has exercised all of his peremptory challenges, if he had to utilize one or more peremptory challenges to excuse jurors who should have been excused for cause, that party needed those peremptory challenges of which he has been deprived; that he would have utilized all of his peremptory challenges had they been available. A party has no grounds to ask for more challenges from a judge who has denied the party challenges for cause. We do not as a rule require what is at best an exercise in futility, and at worst may be viewed as arguing with the judge about his ruling.
The Petition for Rehearing should be denied. The modification confuses rather than clarifies the Opinion.