State v. Potts
Decision Date | 15 October 2001 |
Docket Number | No. 25368.,25368. |
Citation | 347 S.C. 126,554 S.E.2d 38 |
Parties | The STATE, Appellant, v. David M. POTTS, Respondent. |
Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
Attorney General Charles M. Condon, Chief Deputy Attorney General John W. McIntosh, and Senior Assistant Attorney General Charles H. Richardson, of Columbia; and Solicitor Thomas E. Pope, of York, for appellant.
John A. O'Leary, of O'Leary Associates, P.A., of Columbia, for respondent.
The State appeals a circuit court's determination that criminal defendants being tried before a jury in magistrate's court have the right to personally confront all potential jurors prior to exercising their statutorily-granted peremptory challenges. Finding that Respondent's rights had been violated, the circuit court granted him a new trial. We reverse.
David M. Potts ("Respondent") was charged with driving under the influence and pleaded not guilty to that offense. He demanded a jury trial in magistrate's court. Prior to his trial date, the magistrate delivered a list of the names of thirty potential jurors to defense counsel, as well as to the State's representative. The list contained the names of thirty jurors, and each juror's age, race, and gender; it provided no other information.
Before trial the court required the parties to exercise their peremptory strikes on the paper list. Prior to exercising these challenges neither Respondent nor the State had the benefit of face to face contact with the potential jurors. From the list provided, Respondent struck four jurors and the State excused one. The remaining twenty-five jurors were summoned for trial, and six of them were ultimately seated to hear the case against Respondent. After hearing the evidence, the jury found Respondent guilty as charged.
Respondent appealed his conviction, challenging the manner in which the jury was empaneled. The circuit court reversed his conviction, holding that Respondent's "right to personally confront potential jurors was violated by selecting a jury from a paper list, absent the physical presence of the jurors." From this decision, the State appeals.
Does a defendant in magistrate's court have a right to view potential jurors face to face prior to exercising peremptory challenges?
The procedures for selecting and empaneling juries in magistrate's court are outlined in S.C.Code Ann. §§ 22-2-10, et seq. (1989 and Supp.2000).
Respondent's jury was selected using the method for empaneling jurors prescribed in S.C.Code Ann. § 22-2-80 (1989). At the time of Respondent's trial,1 that section provided:
Finally, Section 22-2-110 requires that "[p]arties shall exercise peremptory challenges in advance of the trial date, and only persons selected to serve and alternates shall be summoned for the trial." Respondent distills from dicta in Lewis v. United States, 146 U.S. 370, 13 S.Ct. 136, 36 L.Ed. 1011 (1892), and Pointer v. United States, 151 U.S. 396, 14 S.Ct. 410, 38 L.Ed. 208 (1894), that a defendant, as a component of his 6th Amendment right to be present during all critical stages of trial, has a constitutional right to be brought face to face with each potential juror prior to exercising peremptory challenges.
While those cases do intimate that the right to face to face contact with prospective jurors is an integral component of the right to meaningful exercise of a defendant's peremptory challenges, neither case addresses the issue before this Court.
More recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court ("USSC"), however, undermine Respondent's contention that peremptory challenges are of a constitutional dimension, and suggest that a defendant is entitled to no more and no less than that which the legislature grants.
Id. at 89, 108 S.Ct. at 2278-79, 101 L.Ed.2d at 90-91 (citations omitted; emphasis supplied). See also Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. at 622, 111 S.Ct. 2077, 114 L.Ed.2d 660 (1991) ...
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Green v. Maynard
...(2001), we decline to do so here. We have repeatedly stated that peremptory strikes implicate no constitutional right. State v. Potts, 347 S.C. 126, 554 S.E.2d 38 (2001); State v. Franklin, 318 S.C. 47, 456 S.E.2d 357 (1995); State v. Bailey, 273 S.C. 467, 257 S.E.2d 231 (1979). We adopt th......
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State v. Bryant
...not constitutional rights. They are creatures of statute and "a means to achieve the end of an impartial jury." State v. Potts, 347 S.C. 126, 130, 554 S.E.2d 38, 40 (2001) (quoting Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81, 88, 108 S.Ct. 2273, 101 L.Ed.2d 80 (1988)). Therefore, a defendant seeking to o......