Court Opinion

ID: 9705308
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:01:45.814038+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:09.208154
License: Public Domain

N. PATRICK CROOKS, J.
¶ 36.
(dissenting). I dissent for the reasons stated in my dissent in State v. Ramos, 211 Wis. 2d 12, 564 N.W.2d 328 (1997), since this case presents a somewhat similar fact situation and is clearly controlled by the Ramos decision.1
*754¶ 37. I concluded in Ramos, and I conclude here, "that by using a peremptory challenge to strike a juror who should have been excused for cause" the defendant, Kiernan, "effectively exercised this challenge for the purpose it is intended — to impanel an impartial jury." Ramos, 211 Wis. 2d at 30.
¶ 38. In this case, as in Ramos, there is no claim that the defendant, Kiernan, did not receive a fair trial by an impartial jury.2 The automatic reversal rule adopted by the majority in Ramos, and continued by the majority here, is contrary, I believe, to a commonsense approach. See id. at 24-25.
¶ 39. Where a defendant receives a fair trial with an impartial jury, why should there be a new trial? That is a penalty for trial court error which is much too severe, where there has been no violation of any constitutional right of the defendant.
¶ 40. While I have great respect for the principle of stare decisis,3 the automatic reversal requirement of *755Ramos should be overruled. There should be a new trial only where an erroneous ruling on a challenge for cause actually resulted in prejudice to a defendant.
¶ 41. If a biased juror actually sat on the jury, so that there was not a fair trial with an impartial jury, then a new trial is indeed appropriate. But there should not be an automatic reversal and a new trial as a result, unless that has occurred.
¶ 42. We should return to the approach taken by this court in Carthaus v. State, 78 Wis. 560, 47 N.W. 629 (1891), Pool v. Milwaukee Mechanics Insurance Company, 94 Wis. 447, 69 N.W. 65 (1896), Bergman v. Hendrickson, 106 Wis. 434, 82 N.W. 304 (1900), and also taken by the court of appeals in State v. Traylor, 170 Wis. 2d 393, 489 N.W. 626 (Ct. App. 1992), review denied, 491 N.W.2d 768 (Wis. 1992).
¶ 43. In Traylor, the court of appeals relied on Carthaus and Pool when it concluded, "Wisconsin's longstanding rule is that where a fair and impartial jury is impaneled, there is no basis for concluding that a defendant was wrongly required to use peremptory challenges." Traylor, 170 Wis. 2d at 400.
¶ 44. In the Ramos dissent, we analyzed the holding of the United States Supreme Court in a case involving peremptory challenges that arose in Oklahoma.
The United States Supreme Court considered an analogous Fourteenth Amendment challenge in Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81 (1988). The Court *756indicated: "Because peremptory challenges are a creature of statute and are not required by the Constitution, it is for the State to determine the number of peremptory challenges allowed and to define their purpose and the manner of their exercise." Id. at 89 (internal citations omitted). Accordingly, the Court determined that a defendant's right to due process is violated "only if the defendant does not receive that which state law provides." Id. Applying Oklahoma law, the Ross Court concluded that the petitioner was required to exercise his peremptory challenge to remove the juror, and that the trial court's error constituted "grounds for reversal only if the defendant exhausts all peremptory challenges and an incompetent juror is forced upon him." Id. Since a biased juror was not forced upon the petitioner, the Court held that Ross has received all that Oklahoma law allowed him, and therefore his Fourteenth Amendment challenge failed. Id. at 89-91.
Ramos, 211 Wis. 2d at 31-32 (1997) (Crooks, J., dissenting).
¶ 45. We noted, in the Ramos dissent, that the Ross Court had also considered whether there was a Sixth Amendment violation. The United States Supreme Court held: "So long as the jury that sits is impartial, the fact that the defendant had to use a peremptory challenge to achieve that result does not mean the Sixth Amendment was violated."4 Ross, 487 U.S. at 88.
*757¶ 46. Where there is no constitutional violation, automatic reversal and a new trial are uncalled for, unless the erroneous ruling on a challenge for cause actually resulted in prejudice to a defendant.5 There was no actual prejudice in this case.
¶ 47. For all of these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

 The majority opinion makes it clear that the jury that found the defendant guilty "was fair and impartial." Majority op. at 743. The attorney for Judith Kiernan conceded that fact at oral argument.
The majority also points out that since the decision in Ramos, this is the fourth case where this court has faced the issue as to whether judicial errors in the process of jury selection required a new trial, even though the question of whether an impartial jury had decided the defendant's guilt was not involved. See majority op. at 744.

 In Bielski v. Schulze, 16 Wis. 2d 1, 11, 114 N.W.2d 105 (1962), this court recognized that stare decisis is not a straitjacket preventing a court from overruling itself, but rather a principle that allows change upon sufficient justification:
*755Inherent in the common law is a dynamic principle which allows it to grow and to tailor itself to meet changing needs within the doctrine of stare decisis, which, if correctly understood, was not static and did not forever prevent the courts from reversing themselves or from applying principles of common law to new situations as the need arose.

 I note that the United States Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari in United States of America v. Martinez-Salazar, 146 F.3d 653 (9th Cir. 1998), cert. granted, 1999 WL 59872 (1999). In Martinez-Salazar, a majority of the Ninth Circuit court of appeals held that a defendant who was forced to cure a trial court's erroneous failure to remove a juror *757for cause by using a peremptory challenge, and who ultimately exhausted all of his peremptory challenges, had been deprived of his Fifth Amendment due process rights and is entitled to the automatic reversal of his conviction. See Martinez-Salazar, 146 F.3d at 658-59. Apparently, there is a split among the courts of appeals as to whether reversal is required in such circumstances, absent a showing of prejudice. Compare id. and United States v. Hall, 152 F.3d 381, 408 (5th Cir. 1998) with United States v. Gibson, 105 F.3d 1229, 1233 (8th Cir. 1997), United States v. McIntyre, 997 F.2d 687, 698 n.7 (10th Cir. 1993) and United States v. Farmer, 923 F.2d 1557, 1566 n.20 (11th Cir. 1991).

 I recognize that dictum in Swain v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 202, 219 (1965), suggests that no actual prejudice is needed. Consistent with my dissent in Ramos, I conclude that whatever the import this dictum might arguably have had, it has been essentially nullified by Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81 (1988). See Ramos, 211 Wis. 2d at 36-37 & n.4 (Crooks, J., dissenting).