Curtin v. State, 114, September Term, 2005.

• Citation: 393 Md. 593,903 A.2d 922
• Decision Date: 31 July 2006
• Docket Number: No. 114, September Term, 2005.,114, September Term, 2005.
• Parties: Raymond Alan CURTIN v. STATE of Maryland.
• Court: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland

903 A.2d 922

393 Md. 593

Raymond Alan CURTIN v. STATE of Maryland.

No. 114, September Term, 2005.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

July 31, 2006.

Jennifer P. Lyman, Assigned Public Defender, The George Washington University Law School, Washington, DC, on brief, for petitioner.

Sarah Page Pritzlaff, Assistant Attorney General (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Attorney General of Maryland, on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA and GREENE, JJ.

BATTAGLIA, J.

Petitioner, Raymond Alan Curtin, asks us to determine whether the trial court abused its discretion when it refused to ask his proposed jury voir dire question, "Does anyone have any strong feelings concerning the use of handguns that they would be unable to render a fair and impartial verdict based on the evidence?"¹ We hold that, because the question was not one that, if answered in the affirmative, would have provided a basis for a strike for cause in the instant case, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the requested voir dire question and therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.

I. Background

On April 25, 2003, at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, two masked men entered the First Union Bank in Bowie, Maryland, and ordered everyone to get down. While one of the masked men stood by the entrance to the bank with a gun, the other jumped over the counter and ordered the tellers to give him the money and "no one will get hurt." After emptying all of the tellers' cash drawers, the two men fled the bank.

Mr. Curtin was subsequently arrested and charged with three counts of robbery with a deadly weapon in violation of Section 3-403 of the Criminal Law Article,² three counts of robbery in violation of Section 3-402 of the Criminal Law Article,³ six counts of first degree assault in violation of Section 3-202 of the Criminal Law Article,⁴ six counts of the use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence in violation of Section 4-204 of the Criminal Law Article,⁵ and one count of common law conspiracy.⁶ Mr. Curtin proposed twenty-one voir dire questions, one of which queried:

Does anyone have any strong feelings concerning the use of handguns that they would be unable to render a fair and impartial verdict based on the evidence?

The trial judge refused to ask the handgun question; however, after a brief elucidation of the facts, posed a number of voir dire questions, which included:

In this case the State alleges that on April 25th, 2003, at approximately 1:30, the defendant along with a co-defendant, who is not on trial today, robbed, at gun point, the First Union Bank on Annapolis Road in Bowie, Prince George's County, Maryland.

* * *

Has any member of the jury panel ever worked in a bank, a quick market such as the 7-Eleven or Wa-Wa, or other such establishment?

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Does any member of the jury panel belong to, support, contribute to, or have any association with any group or organization that has among its purposes taking an advocacy position to influence the government on issues relevant to the criminal justice system, for example, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Students Against Drunk Drivers, the NRA, the Stephanie Roper Committee, and the like?

* * *

Does any members of the jury panel have any ethical, moral or religious obligation which would prevent you from sitting as a juror in this case?

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Has any member of the jury panel or members of your immediate family ever been the victim of a crime, or arrested for, charged with or convicted of a crime, excluding routine motor vehicle violations?

Throughout his trial, Mr. Curtin maintained he was not a participant in the robbery and, alternatively, that the gun used in the robbery was not a real gun. The jury convicted him on all counts, and the trial judge sentenced him to twenty-five years in prison without the possibility of parole and an additional five years of supervised probation with drug and alcohol counseling. Mr. Curtin thereafter filed a timely motion for reconsideration of his sentence, which was denied, and he subsequently noted an appeal to the Court of Special Appeals.

In a published opinion, the Court of Special Appeals held that it was not an abuse of the trial judge's discretion to refuse to ask Mr. Curtin's handgun question. 165 Md.App. 60, 884 A.2d 758 (2005). In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that a trial judge, when deciding whether to ask a requested voir dire question, must assess whether there is a reasonable likelihood that the proposed question would reveal a basis for disqualification and also balance the time and judicial resources required to pose the question against the likelihood that the question would evoke a response reflecting bias or impartiality. Id. at 68, 884 A.2d at 763. The intermediate appellate court concluded that the question was not mandated because the jury was not required to analyze the "reasonableness" or "justifiableness" of the use of the gun in the instant case.

Before this Court, Mr. Curtin argues the use of a handgun is an essential element of the crimes in the present case because the indictment charged him with multiple counts of armed robbery, use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence and first degree assault, and therefore a question pertaining to biases against hand guns was appropriate. Mr. Curtin maintains that his defense at trial was that the State had not proven that the handgun used in the robbery was a real handgun. Moreover, Mr. Curtin claims that the Court of Special Appeals applied the wrong standard to determine whether the trial judge should have asked his proposed handgun question because the court held that a question regarding the jurors' emotions only must be asked if those emotions necessarily would affect the veniremen's ability to render an impartial verdict, whereas, he asserts, the correct standard to be applied is whether there is any likelihood that emotions would affect the venireman's ability to render an impartial verdict. Mr. Curtin contends that the correct standard requires that the trial court ask his proposed question because it was aimed at uncovering whether the veniremen harbored biases that were likely, rather than necessarily, to affect their ability to render a fair and impartial verdict.

Conversely, the State argues that the trial court is only required to ask a voir dire question if it focuses on issues particular to the defendant's case and relates to the alleged criminal acts. In this case, the State contends, a question regarding bias against handguns was not necessary because the use of the handgun was peripheral to a determination of Mr. Curtin's criminal culpability. According to the State, whether a juror is biased against the use of a handgun would not have made him or her more or less likely to have found Mr. Curtin guilty of any of the charges for which he was convicted, regardless of whether the juror believed the gun to have been real. Therefore, the State asserts that the handgun question was not required. Nonetheless, the State also alleges that, even if the question was required, the trial judge adequately addressed the issue of bias against handguns by propounding other questions to the venire.

II. Discussion

In this case we must determine whether the trial judge abused his discretion in refusing to propound Mr. Curtin's voir dire question designed to elicit information regarding whether any of the veniremen harbored strong feelings concerning the use of handguns such that they would have been unable to render a fair and impartial verdict based on the evidence. State v. Thomas, 369 Md. 202, 204, 798 A.2d 566, 567 (2002); Boyd v. State, 341 Md. 431, 433, 671 A.2d 33, 34 (1996); Casey v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, 217 Md. 595, 605, 143 A.2d 627, 631 (1958); Alexander v. R.D. Grier & Sons Co., 181 Md. 415, 419, 30 A.2d 757, 759 (1943); Cohen v. State, 173 Md. 216, 195 A. 532 (1937); Whittemore v. State, 151 Md. 309, 314, 134 A. 322, 323 (1926).

Voir dire is the primary mechanism through which the constitutional right to a fair and impartial jury, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, is protected. Thomas, 369 Md. at 206, 798 A.2d at 568; see also Boyd v. State, 341 Md. 431, 435, 671 A.2d 33, 35 (1996); Couser v. State, 282 Md. 125, 138, 383 A.2d 389, 396-97 (1978); Grogg v. State, 231 Md. 530, 532, 191 A.2d 435, 436 (1963). It is the process in which prospective jurors are examined through the use of questions propounded by the judge or either of the parties to determine the existence of any bias or prejudice and, literally translated, means "to say the truth." Bedford v. State, 317 Md. 659, 670, 566 A.2d 111, 116 (1989). The voir dire process is governed by Maryland Rule 4-312, which provides in pertinent part:

(d) Examination of jurors. The court may permit the parties to conduct an examination of prospective jurors or may itself conduct the examination after considering questions proposed by the parties. If the court conducts the examination, it may permit the parties to supplement the examination by further inquiry or may itself submit to the jurors additional questions proposed by the parties. The jurors' responses to any examination shall be under oath. Upon request or any party the court shall direct the clerk to call the roll of the panel and to request each juror to stand and be identified when called by name.

After a prospective juror is questioned, both the State and the defendant have the opportunity to exercise two types of challenges, those for cause and peremptory challenges. Peremptory challenges, as defined by Judge John C. Eldridge, writing for this Court in Gilchrist v. State, 340 Md. 606, 667 A.2d 876 (1995), are challenges exercised "without a reason stated, without inquiry, . . . without being subject to the court...