Dingle v. State
Decision Date | 15 September 2000 |
Docket Number | No. 87,87 |
Parties | Ricky DINGLE v. STATE of Maryland. |
Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Geraldine K. Sweeney, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.
Devy Patterson Russell, Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.
Harry B. Siegel, Columbia, brief of Amicus Curiae of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Ass'n filed on behalf of the Petitioner.
Argued before BELL, C.J., and ELDRIDGE, RODOWSKY, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL and HARRELL, JJ.
The issue this case presents,1 which involves the voir dire process, had its genesis in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County, in the trial, for robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon and related charges, of the petitioner, Ricky Dingle and two co-defendants.2 During the voir dire process, the petitioner sought to have the trial court inquire of the venire panel whether any of them had certain experiences or associations.3 While the court agreed to, and did, make the inquiries the petitioner requested, it did so by joining with each of the petitioner's requested inquiries, one suggested by the State, namely an inquiry into whether the experience or association posited would affect the prospective juror's ability to be fair and impartial.4 Thus, the inquiry the court conducted to satisfy the petitioner's concerns consisted of a series of two part questions, the answers to which, the court instructed, need not be revealed unless a member of the venire panel answered both parts in the affirmative.5 As to that, the venire panel was instructed as follows:
The prospective jurors who stood and confirmed that their answer to the second part of the question was in the affirmative, thus indicating that they could not be fair, were, if reached, excused for cause, either on motion of the State or of the defense. What occurred during the inquiry into the prospective jurors' experience with crime victimization is illustrative:
The petitioner objected to the use of the two part format on a number of grounds, principally because he believed, and therefore argued, that asking compound questions and requiring an answer only if the prospective juror thought that he or she could not be fair, would, and, in fact did, result in a jury in which the venire persons themselves, by "unilateral decision," determined their fitness to serve on the jury. The petitioner also argued that conducting the voir dire in the manner the trial court did would, and in fact did, deprive the petitioner of information relevant and critical to the exercise of his challenges for cause. The objections were overruled. The court's rationale for the ruling is instructive:
"The court has asked the questions which the defense has presented in the two-part format I described on many occasions, and on many occasions we've had people stand up in response to those questions and say, Yes, Judge, I can't be fair and impartial, so it would appear to the court that the only reason for calling up the venire men here to the bench for individual voir dire is to allow the defense to develop more information which the defense intends to use in exercising its peremptory challenges, and therefore, the court declines to do so."
The petitioner's appeal to the Court of Special Appeals was unsuccessful. That court affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court in an unreported opinion. We shall reverse the judgment of the intermediate appellate court, in the process confirming that the trial judge is charged with the impaneling of the jury and must determine, in the final analysis, the fitness of the individual venire persons. We shall hold that the voir dire procedure utilized in this case usurped the court's responsibility in this regard.
quoting Langley v. State, 281 Md. 337, 340, 378 A.2d 1338, 1339 (1977)
(citing Waters v. State, 51 Md. 430, 436 (1879)), we said, "a fundamental tenet underlying the practice of trial by jury is that each juror, as far as possible, be impartial and unbiased."
We recognized in Davis that:
(quoting Corens v. State, 185 Md. 561, 564, 45 A.2d 340, 343 (1946)). Thus, we said in Hill, 339 Md. at 279, 661 A.2d at 1166 (quoting McGee v. State, 219 Md. 53, 58, 146 A.2d 194, 196 (1959), in turn quoting Adams v. State, 200 Md. 133, 140, 88 A.2d 556, 559 (1952)):
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