Ratliff v. State

690 S.W.2d 597, 1985 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1433
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedJune 5, 1985
Docket66972
StatusPublished
Cited by113 cases

This text of 690 S.W.2d 597 (Ratliff v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ratliff v. State, 690 S.W.2d 597, 1985 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1433 (Tex. 1985).

Opinions

OPINION

W.C. DAVIS, Judge.

A jury convicted appellant of aggravated robbery and assessed punishment, enhanced by a prior conviction, at confinement for not less than fifteen years nor more than forty years.

In one of his nine grounds of error appellant contends that the trial court erroneously restricted his voir dire examination to the extent that he could not exercise his peremptory challenges intelligently and thus was deprived of effective assistance of counsel.

The court initially advised counsel for the State and counsel for appellant that they each had one hour in which to conduct the voir dire. The judge informed the jury about certain principles of law including the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, the defendant’s right not to testify, and trial procedure. The State spent a total of 43 minutes lecturing the jurors on certain principles of law; questioning them as a whole about their ability to assess the maximum punishment; and questioning them individually about background information such as occupation. Appellant began his voir dire by telling the jury about certain principles of law. Then, he questioned the panel as a whole, row by row, about whether they knew the prosecutors or any of the State’s witnesses; whether any of them or any member of their family had been a victim of a crime; whether their [599]*599family or close friends were in law enforcement or had served on a grand jury; and, depending on the various answers, whether they could act as fair and impartial jurors and render a verdict based only upon the evidence heard in the courtroom. During the course of the voir dire appellant challenged three veniremembers for cause and questioned a fourth at the bench for several minutes. Two of the challenged venire-members were excused. After appellant had examined three veniremembers individually the court told him that his hour was “up”, but that the court would give him fifteen more minutes. The court actually allowed him twenty-one more minutes, during which he questioned seven more venire-members individually. The court then told appellant he could have fifteen minutes to make a closing statement. Appellant objected to the action of the court in limiting his voir dire. He perfected a bill of exception in which he stated that he had only questioned eleven veniremembers. He offered a list of fifteen questions that he wanted to ask and which he alleged were necessary so that he could exercise his peremptory challenges and provide adequate representation.

The right to be represented by counsel, guaranteed by Article 1, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution, encompasses the right of counsel to question the members of the jury panel in order to intelligently exercise his peremptory challenges. Mathis v. State, 167 Tex.Cr.R. 627, 322 S.W.2d 629 (1959); De La Rosa v. State, 414 S.W.2d 668 (Tex.Cr.App.1967); Burkett v. State, 516 S.W.2d 147 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Hernandez v. State, 508 S.W.2d 853 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Abron v. State, 523 S.W.2d 405 (Tex.Cr.App.1975). The trial court, in its sound discretion, can and should control the voir dire examination of the venire; ...

Mathis v. State, 576 S.W.2d 835, 836 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). A trial court may impose reasonable restrictions on the exercise of voir dire examination. See McManus v. State, 591 S.W.2d 505 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). These two principles — the right of counsel to question veniremembers and the right of the trial court to control the voir dire and impose reasonable restrictions — coexist and must be harmonized.

In reviewing a contention that the trial court abused its discretion in the time limitation which it imposed, two factors are relevant: (1) whether the defendant’s voir dire examination reveals an attempt to prolong the voir dire; for example, whether the questions were irrelevant, immaterial or unnecessarily repetitious; and (2) whether the questions that the defendant was not permitted to ask members of the venire were proper voir dire questions. Clark v. State, 608 S.W.2d 667 (Tex.Cr.App.1980); De La Rosa v. State, 414 S.W.2d 668 (Tex.Cr.App.1967).

The cornerstone case on the issue of time limitation of voir dire examination is De La Rosa, supra. In De La Rosa a thirty minute limit on the defendant’s voir dire examination was held to be “unreasonable.” This Court noted two important factors in reviewing the contention: First, the defendant’s voir dire revealed no attempt to prolong the examination of prospective jurors; and second, the questions set out in his bill of exception were proper and were not irrelevant, immaterial or unnecessarily repetitious.

In Barrett v. State, 516 S.W.2d 181 (Tex.Cr.App.1974) a thirty minute limitation was found to be reasonable because of the two factors noted in De La Rosa. This Court found that the defendant in Barrett sought to extend the voir dire proceedings indefinitely and that his twenty-six page list of questions was full of repetitious and irrelevant questions.

In Clark v. State, 608 S.W.2d 667 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) a panel of this Court distinguished Barrett and De La Rosa on the basis of the two factors noted in De La Rosa, supra. The panel found that the defendant did not attempt to prolong the voir dire proceedings because the questions he asked were proper. The panel then discussed one of the questions included in the defendant’s bill of exception and found that it was a proper question. In light of [600]*600these two factors, the thirty-eight minute limitation of the defendant’s voir dire examination was found to be “arbitrary.”

This Court held that a fifty minute limitation of a defendant’s voir dire examination was reasonable in Whitaker v. State, 653 S.W.2d 781 (Tex.Cr.App.1983). However, the Court did not review the contention by examining the limitation in light of the two factors set out in De La Rosa, supra. Rather, the court focused on the fact that appellant was able to individually examine twenty-three members of the panel and the record did not reflect whether the jury was composed entirely of those he examined. Since there was no showing that the jury was not composed of twelve people from these twenty-three, this Court held that no harm was shown.

In Thomas v. State, 658 S.W.2d 175 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) this Court held that a defendant was unduly restricted by the forty-five minute limit imposed.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
690 S.W.2d 597, 1985 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1433, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ratliff-v-state-texcrimapp-1985.