Harvin v. United States, 6382.
Decision Date | 29 November 1972 |
Docket Number | No. 6382.,6382. |
Citation | 297 A.2d 774 |
Parties | Bennie HARVIN, Jr., Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Appellee. |
Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Gregory C. Brady, Asst. U. S. Atty., with whom Harold H. Titus, Jr., U. S. Atty., and John A. Terry, Asst. U. S. Atty., were on the brief, for appellee.
Before KELLY, KERN and PAIR, Associate Judges.
After a jury trial, appellant was found guilty of receiving stolen property1 and unauthorized use of a vehicle.2 While several claims of error are urged on appeal, we find it necessary to consider only one — the contention that the trial court improperly restricted the scope of questions addressed to the panel of prospective jurors during the voir dire. We agree and reverse.
The record discloses that, pursuant to Super.Ct.Crim. Rule 24(a), the trial court permitted counsel to conduct the voir dire of the panel of prospective jurors, but improperly restricted defense counsel in certain important respects.3 We set out at length one interchange between the court and defense counsel:
The foregoing portion of the record establishes conclusively that counsel, perhaps inartfully,4 sought to query on voir dire whether any prospective juror would be more likely to give greater credence to the testimony of a police officer merely because he is a police officer than to any other witness. Since the trial judge had not undertaken the voir dire, counsel was entitled under controlling case law in this jurisdiction to propound this question to the prospective members of the jury panel.
True it is that the trial court possesses a "broad discretion as to the questions to be asked" during the voir dire, but the exercise of that discretion is "subject to the essential demands of fairness." Aldridge v. United States, 283 U.S. 308, 310, 51 S.Ct. 470, 471, 75 L.Ed. 1054 (1931). In this jurisdiction it has been held to constitute reversible error for the trial court to fail to ask on voir dire, when requested, questions of similar import. Brown v. United States, 119 U.S.App.D.C. 203, 338 F.2d 543 (1964); Sellers v. United States, 106 U.S.App.D.C. 209, 271 F.2d 475 (1959) (per curiam); cf. United States v. Gore, 435 F.2d 1110 (4th Cir. 1970) and Chavez v. United States, 258 F. 2d 816 (10th Cir. 1958) (dictum), cert. denied sub nom., Tenorio v. United States, 359 U.S. 916, 79 S.Ct. 592, 3 L.Ed.2d 577 (1959).5
In Sellers, supra, and Brown, supra, virtually the entire cases for the Government consisted of testimony by law enforcement officers, and in the latter case it was said: We construe [Sellers] as establishing that when important testimony is anticipated from certain categories of witnesses, whose official or semi-official status is such that a juror might reasonably be more, or less, inclined to credit their testimony, a query as to whether a juror would have such an inclination is not only appropriate but should be given if requested. Failure to make appropriate inquiry, when requested, does not necessarily require reversal; the issue turns on the degree of impact which the testimony in question would be likely to have had on the jury and what part such testimony played in the case as a whole. . . .6 [119 U.S.App.D.C. at 205, 338 F.2d at 545; emphasis supplied.]
In the case at bar appellant was charged, inter alia, with unauthorized use of a vehicle and, as in Brown and Sellers, the testimony of the officer was crucial and could have embraced "virtually the entire case for the prosecution." Brown, supra, at 205, 338 F.2d at 545. Moreover, the testimony of the police officer was in sharp conflict with that of defendant and controverted the entire theory of the defense.
By the sixth amendment, the defendant was guaranteed a trial by an impartial jury,7 a right which ranks very high in our catalogue of constitutional safeguards.8 In fact, the very purpose of the voir dire is to permit counsel to satisfy themselves that they have an impartial jury.9 Nothing could be plainer than that a predisposition to attach greater or lesser credence to any witness' testimony is inconsistent with this fundament of our legal system, and, as Brown and Sellers illustrate, the defendant is entitled to explore this area of possible disqualification prior to the impanelling of the jury.
The denial of such a fundamental right cannot be countenanced. The record before us discloses other matters of an equally disturbing nature. On the disposition we make today we need not consider such matters, except to say that the court should at all times...
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