State v. Anthony

• Decision Date: 28 December 1976
• Citation: 374 A.2d 156,172 Conn. 172
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Connecticut v. Patricia ANTHONY.

Page 156

374 A.2d 156

172 Conn. 172

STATE of Connecticut v. Patricia ANTHONY.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued Oct. 12, 1976.

Decided Dec. 28, 1976.

Before HOUSE, C. J., and LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI, LONGO and BARBER, JJ.

John R. Williams, New Haven, for appellant (defendant).

William F. Gallagher, Sp. Asst. State's Atty., with whom, on the brief, was Arnold Markle, State's Atty., for appellee (state).

HOUSE, Chief Justice.

The defendant was found guilty by a jury of twelve of violating § 19-481(a) of the General Statutes by having in her possession or under her control a quantity of a narcotic drug heroin. Although on this appeal she assigned and briefed several claims of error, at argument all but one of the assignments of error were abandoned. The only claim of error pressed is that the court erred in imposing an arbitrary time limit on the defendant's voir dire examination of prospective jurors, without regard to the questions asked or the answers given.

At the commencement of the voir dire examination, a panel of veniremen was summoned to the courtroom where counsel were permitted to identify themselves and their associates, identify the type of case to be tried, and mention the names of possible witnesses. Fourteen members of the panel were then selected by lot and seated in the jury box and the remainder of the panel returned to the jury assembly room. The court then addressed some general inquiries to the members of the panel and informed them that counsel would address questions to them. It informed them that if a venireman preferred to answer any of the questions in the absence of the others that venireman should remain in the jury box when the panel was excused, and he would then have the opportunity to give any further information he wished.

We have held that such a procedure in conducting the selection of a jury is a permissible one so long as counsel are allowed to direct their questions to individual prospective jurors and there is no showing of any prejudice by having other veniremen present in the jury box during the voir dire. Childs v. Blesso, 158 Conn. 389, 394, 260 A.2d 582. The court, however, then imposed a fixed time limitation of one hour on the defendant's voir dire examination of the fourteen veniremen. The same procedure was followed with a second panel of veniremen, the time limit being fixed at one hour. When a third panel was necessary to complete the jury, the same procedure was again followed and a time limit of forty-five minutes set by the court. As a result of the time limitations fixed by the court, defense counsel was forced to terminate his voir dire examination before he was ready to do so. The defendant duly excepted to the fixed time limitations as an arbitrary exercise of the court's discretion and, as noted, relied on this claim of error as the sole ground for decision on the merits of this appeal.

The right to a voir dire examination of each prospective juror in any civil or criminal case is provided by § 51-240 ¹ of the General Statutes. Since the present case was tried, the right has been established as a constitutional one by the inclusion in article IV of the amendments to the state constitution the provision that "(t)he right to question each juror individually by counsel shall be inviolate."

As this court stated in Childs v. Blesso, supra, 394, 260 A.2d 584: "The trial court is vested with wide discretion in conducting the examination of jurors. State v. Higgs, 143 Conn. 138, 142, 120 A.2d 152; Duffy v. Carroll, 137 Conn. 51, 57, 75 A.2d 33; Sherman v. William M. Ryan & Sons, Inc., 126 Conn. 574, 578, 13 A.2d 134. There is no reversible error in the court's exercise of its discretion unless it has been clearly abused or one of the parties has been prejudiced. State v. Higgs, supra; Sherman v. William M. Ryan & Sons, Inc., supra." See also Robinson v. Faulkner, 163 Conn. 365, 374, 306 A.2d 857.

The purpose of the voir dire examination is twofold. "First, it provides information upon which the presiding judge may decide which of the prospective jurors, if any, he should excuse for cause. Secondly, it informs counsel as to matters which may influence them in the exercise of their right to peremptory challenges." Duffy v. Carroll, supra, 137 Conn. 56, 75 A.2d 35. In view of the diversity of types of cases which are submitted to juries and the impossibility of establishing definite and fixed limitations on the inquiries permissible in all circumstances a broad discretion must be vested in the trial court which has the distinct advantage of supervising the actual questioning as well as observing the reaction and responses of the veniremen to the questions propounded to them. It is for this reason that a ruling of the trial judge in the course of a voir dire examination is held to be reversible error only when the judge has clearly abused his discretion or harmful prejudice appears to have resulted. Robinson v. Faulkner, supra.

We have noted with concern increasing abuse of the voir dire process to the extent that in some instances it has taken longer to select a jury to try a case than to try the case itself. It appears that all too frequently counsel have engaged in wide-ranging interrogation of veniremen in a not too subtle attempt to influence the ultimate decision of a venireman if he should be selected for service or to ascertain the attitude of...