State v. Brogden

430 S.E.2d 905, 334 N.C. 39, 1993 N.C. LEXIS 290
CourtSupreme Court of North Carolina
DecidedJuly 2, 1993
Docket46A92
StatusPublished
Cited by70 cases

This text of 430 S.E.2d 905 (State v. Brogden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Brogden, 430 S.E.2d 905, 334 N.C. 39, 1993 N.C. LEXIS 290 (N.C. 1993).

Opinions

WHICHARD, Justice.

Defendant was first tried capitally at the 8 August 1988 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Duplin County. The jury found defendant guilty of first-degree murder, based on both premeditation and deliberation and felony murder, and of robbery with a dangerous weapon. Following a capital sentencing proceeding pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000 (1988), the jury recommended the death sentence. On appeal, this Court found no error in the guilt phase of the trial but vacated the death sentence and remanded for a new capital sentencing proceeding. State v. Brogden, 329 N.C. 534, 407 S.E.2d 158 (1991). Following a second sentencing proceeding, the jury again recommended the death sentence.

Defendant contends, and we agree, that the trial court erred during jury selection by refusing to permit defendant to question any prospective juror whom the prosecutor challenged for cause on the basis of his or her views about capital punishment. The refusal apparently resulted from a misapprehension of the law and effected the excusal for cause of a prospective juror likely qualified to be seated as a juror. We thus hold that defendant is entitled to a new capital sentencing proceeding.

After the prosecutor challenged for cause, based on the venireperson’s response to death qualification questions, the first venireperson examined in individual voir dire, defense counsel asked to examine the juror. The court responded:

All right, the Court is going to rule ... at the outset that it will not allow rehabilitation of a juror as it is, as the Supreme Court of North Carolina stated that such is a waste of valuable time if allowed by the Court. Objection is overruled. Exception.

[41]*41The court elicited the statement that the venireperson would always vote for life no matter what the evidence, and then excused him for cause. Defense counsel asked that .the court note a continuing request to examine the juror; in response, the court granted a continuing objection as to each venireperson excused for cause:

Mr. HALL: Your Honor, would you note our continuing request to examine him?
The COURT: Yes, I will. You will be given a continuing objection in each of these jurors because this is a ruling that the Court has made in accordance with it’s [sic] understanding of the Supreme Court [of] North Carolina that it would accomplish nothing since there -is [sic] no jurors in here that rehabilitation, you will just ask him well, can’t you follow the judge’s instruction and then after and say well, I guess I could. Well, then the district attorney would say then can’t you do it and it would be back and forth and you would have the poor people so confused and you wouldn’t know whether they were coming or going and out of human kindness and desire to move along and do the thing like it ought to be, I’m going to follow the Supreme Court as I understand it’s [sic] rule, but you will get a continuing objection to each one of those cases where that comes up.

The court allowed sixteen challenges for cause on the grounds of the prospective jurors’ responses to the death qualification questions posed by the prosecutor and the court. The court twice reiterated its ruling prohibiting any defense questioning following the prosecutor’s death qualification “for cause” challenges, and ten times merely stated “exception to the defendant,” acknowledging the vitality of defendant’s continuing objection to the ruling as to each prospective juror excused for such cause. The court made an exception to its initial ruling that there would be no rehabilitation and allowed defendant to question one prospective juror challenged for cause by the State. It stated: “All right, I’m going to make an exception in this case. I’m going to let you examine him on this particular thing. Let’s see, I want to get the other view. I want to be absolutely fair with this thing.” The trial court subsequently denied that challenge for cause, and the State exercised a peremptory challenge.

The standard for determining whether a prospective juror may be excused for cause was announced in Witherspoon v. Illinois, [42]*42in which the United States Supreme Court held that prospective jurors could not be excused for cause simply because they voiced general objections to capital punishment; however, they could be excused for cause if they expressed an unmistakable commitment to automatically vote against the death penalty, regardless of the facts and circumstances which might be presented. Witherspoon, 391 U.S. 510, 20 L. Ed. 2d 776, reh’g denied, 393 U.S. 898, 21 L. Ed. 2d 186 (1968). “A man who opposes the death penalty, no less than one who favors it, can make the discretionary judgment entrusted to him by the State and can thus obey the oath he takes as a juror.” Id. at 519, 20 L. Ed. 2d at 783. In Wainwright v. Witt, the Supreme Court clarified Witherspoon and held that a juror cannot properly be excused for his views on capital punishment unless those views “would ‘prevent or substantially impair the performance of his duties as a juror in accordance with his instructions and his oath.’ ” 469 U.S. 412, 424, 83 L. Ed. 2d 841, 851-52 (1985) (quoting Adams v. Texas, 448 U.S. 38, 45, 65 L. Ed. 2d 581, 589 (1980)). The Court acknowledged that

[t]he state of this case law leaves trial courts with the difficult task of distinguishing between prospective jurors whose opposition to capital punishment will not allow them to apply the law or view the facts impartially and jurors who, though opposed to capital punishment, will nevertheless conscientiously apply the law to the facts adduced at trial.
. . . [W]hether or not a venireman might vote for death under certain personal standards, the State still may properly challenge that venireman if he refuses to follow the statutory scheme and truthfully answer the questions put by the trial judge.

Id. at 421-22, 83 L. Ed. 2d at 850 (emphasis added; emphasis in original omitted). “[T]he quest is for jurors who will conscientiously apply the law and find the facts. That is what an ‘impartial’ jury consists of. . . .” Id. at 423, 83 L. Ed. 2d at 851. In Adams v. Texas, the Court stated:

[T]he Constitution [does not] permit the exclusion of jurors from the penalty phase of a . . . murder trial if . . . they aver that they will honestly find the facts and answer the [capital sentencing] questions in the affirmative if they are convinced beyond reasonable doubt, but not otherwise, yet [43]*43who frankly concede that the prospects of the death penalty may affect what their honest judgment of the facts will be or what they may deem to be a reasonable doubt.

448 U.S. at 50, 65 L. Ed. 2d at 593 (emphasis added). In Lockhart v. McCree, the Court said:

It is important to remember that not all who oppose the death penalty are subject to removal for cause in capital cases; those who firmly believe that the death penalty is unjust may nevertheless serve as jurors in capital cases

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
430 S.E.2d 905, 334 N.C. 39, 1993 N.C. LEXIS 290, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-brogden-nc-1993.