Title: Challenges for Cause in New York Criminal Cases
Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION The right to an impartial jury has long been recognized by both the United States Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed to the accused.(1) Without an impartial jury, the other constitutional and statutory rights granted to the accused are all but meaningless.(2) If the jurors have prejudged the case, it matters little that the defendant is represented by art attorney or that he has the right to present witnesses.(3) Consequently, jury selection is one of the most critical stages of a criminal proceeding.(4) An indispensable component of the defendant's right to an impartial jury is the elimination of biased jurors,(5) and this has formed one of the most frequently litigated issues in New York criminal cases.(6) The New York Criminal Procedure Law provides three methods for challenging biased jurors: challenges to the entire panel, peremptory challenges, and challenges for cause.(7) The grounds for which an entire panel may be challenged are extremely narrow, relating only to the method of selecting the jury pool and requiring the defendant to prove substantial prejudice.(8) In contrast, peremptory challenges may be used for nearly any reason or none,(9) but they have the disadvantage of being limited in number,(10) Thus, challenges for cause--which are unlimited and which may be brought for a much wider variety of reasons(11)--are an indispensable method of ensuring that prospective jurors who are biased against the a party are not permitted to sit. Among the most common statutory provisions under which prospective jurors are challenged for cause is section 270.20(1)(b) of the Criminal Procedure Law,(12) which provides that a juror should be disqualified if [hie has a state of mind that is likely to preclude him from rendering an impartial verdict based upon the evidence adduced at the trial.(13) This provision allows prospective jurors to be challenged for a wide range of preconceived opinions and biases. (14) However, once a prospective juror expresses such a bias, it is frequently difficult, or even impossible, to determine whether he has truly prejudged the case or whether he can set his prejudice aside.(15) The discretion granted to trial judges by the Court of Appeals in adjudicating such challenges has thus led to numerous claims of error by defendants who allege that biased jurors were improperly empanelled.(16) The New York Court of Appeals has correctly described this a bothersome area of law.(17) In five cases during the past thirty years, the high court has wrestled with the interpretation of Criminal Procedure Law section 270.20,(18) and despite its attempts to arrive at a definitive construction of the statute, lower courts continue to differ to the proper standard for adjudicating challenges for cause.(19) Thus, in April 2000, the Court of Appeals, in People v. Johnson,(20) made its most recent attempt to lay the unresolved issues in criminal jury selection to rest. This article will examine, in light of the history of challenges for cause under New York law, whether it has succeeded. Accordingly, Part II of this article will analyze the evolution of challenges to biased jurors in New York from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the enactment of the Criminal Procedure Law in 1972.(21) Part III will examine the interpretation of Criminal Procedure Law section 270.20(1)(b) by the Court of Appeals and lower New York courts between 1972 and 2000, and discuss the difficulties faced by those courts in interpreting the statute.(22) Part IV will discuss the Court of Appeals' holding in Johnson and determine whether any or all of these difficulties have been successfully resolved.(23) II. JUROR DISQUALIFICATION PRIOR TO THE CRIMINAL PROCEDURE LAW In 1878, the New York Court of Appeals noted that, at common law, any venireman who had formed or expressed an opinion of the defendant's guilt or had otherwise demonstrated that he was not indifferent between the parties was, as a rule of law, disqualified. …
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-12-22
Language: en
Type: article
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