State v. Windsor

• Decision Date: 17 March 1982
• Docket Number: No. 66052,66052
• Citation: 316 N.W.2d 684
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. George Edward WINDSOR, Appellant.

Page 684

316 N.W.2d 684

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. George Edward WINDSOR, Appellant.

No. 66052.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

March 17, 1982.

Douglas F. Staskal, Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Roxann M. Ryan, Asst. Atty. Gen., and David L. Gill, Asst. Woodbury County Atty., for appellee.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C. J., LeGRAND, UHLENHOPP, McCORMICK and McGIVERIN, JJ.

McCORMICK, Justice.

Defendant George Edward Windsor appeals from his conviction by jury and sentence for sexual abuse in the third degree in violation of section 709.4(1), The Code. He contends that the trial court abused its discretion in limiting his voir dire of prospective jurors, that the court was biased, that the court erred in several evidentiary rulings, and that the cumulative errors denied him a fair trial. We affirm the trial court.

The State charged defendant as the result of an incident that occurred in the late evening of January 12, 1980. The alleged victim is a young woman who spent the earlier part of the evening with her boyfriend and other friends in a Sioux City tavern. After becoming upset with her boyfriend, she left the tavern alone to walk home. While on the way, a man in a car offered her a ride but she refused and continued walking. A few minutes later the man who earlier had offered her a ride grabbed her from behind, dragged her to an area between two residences, and sexually assaulted her. When the attack ended, she ran to a friend's home, called her boyfriend and later the police.

The victim described her assailant and his automobile for the police. She was also examined by a physician. Defendant owned an automobile that she subsequently identified as like the one driven by the man who attacked her. When the police showed her a photographic array including defendant's picture, she identified defendant as the attacker. In a search of defendant's home, the police found a jacket matching the victim's description of the man's attire at the time of the assault. Defendant was arrested and charged. At trial he denied the offense and asserted a defense of alibi. He was convicted and now appeals.

I. The voir dire issue. Defendant contends the trial court erred in restricting voir dire and in interjecting comments during his counsel's interrogation of potential jurors. Defendant sought expansive voir dire through several motions, all of which were overruled. The court conducted part of the voir dire by asking the panel several general questions concerning their willingness to follow the law, their knowledge of the case, and their acquaintanceship with the witnesses and attorneys. Counsel were then permitted to question the jurors on subjects not covered by the court. On several occasions, the court interrupted defense counsel to stop his inquiry on particular subjects.

The manner of conducting voir dire and its scope are not specifically addressed by rules of procedure in Iowa. This court has said, however, that the purpose in allowing latitude in counsel's inquiry is to provide information to assist counsel in deciding how to exercise challenges. Control of the process is lodged in the discretion of the trial court, and this court will not reverse unless that discretion manifestly has been abused. State v. Elmore, 201 N.W.2d 443, 446-47 (Iowa 1972).

Defendant does not complain about a trial court conducting voir dire. He does complain that the court's voir dire was inadequate and that it was an abuse of discretion for the court to deny counsel the right to question the panel more thoroughly. The main subject on which he desired more specific and detailed interrogation was the possibility of racial prejudice based on the fact he is black and the alleged victim is white.

On this subject the judge instructed the panel on principles of equal justice, specifically noting the racial difference and declaring that racial issues "have no part in any criminal trial." He asked whether any member of the panel could not "live with that concept of our law" and no one responded. Defendant characterizes the question as a "challenge" to the jurors to reveal any prejudice and argues any juror who spoke up "would surely have felt he was revealing himself as at least un-American, if not criminal." The voir dire record discloses defense counsel made brief inquiry of individual jurors about racial prejudice, with negative response. Counsel, however, sought to use more subtle and detailed questions to bring possible prejudice to the surface. For example, he started to ask a juror to identify the best book he had read recently. The court interrupted the question to call counsel's attention to the time, and the issue was not pursued.

In the circumstances of this case, we do not find an abuse of discretion in the court's handling of the inquiry concerning racial prejudice. Based on the racial difference and the nature of the alleged offense, it is reasonable to believe a possibility of racial prejudice against defendant existed. The court obviously recognized this possibility in specifically inquiring about racial prejudice. The present dispute concerns the style and sufficiency of the interrogation. In resolving this dispute, we believe it is important that no special circumstances were shown to suggest the possibility of prejudice other than the difference in race between the defendant and victim and the nature of the alleged offense.

The significance of special circumstances is exemplified in two decisions of the United States Supreme Court in which defendants asserted a due process right to specific inquiry concerning racial prejudice during voir dire. In Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524, 93 S.Ct. 848, 35 L.Ed.2d 46 (1973), the right was upheld. In Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U.S. 589, 96 S.Ct. 1017, 47 L.Ed.2d 258 (1976), it was not. In Ham the defendant was a civil rights activist who alleged that local authorities had framed him on a drug charge because of his civil rights work. Thus, racial prejudice was a material issue affecting the merits of the case:

His prominence in the community as a civil rights activist, if not already known to veniremen, inevitably would have been revealed to the members of the jury in the course of his presentation of that defense. Racial issues therefore were inextricably bound up with the conduct of the trial. Further, Ham's reputation as a civil rights activist and the defense he interposed were likely to intensify any prejudice that individual members of the jury might harbor.

Ristaino, 424 U.S. at 596-97, 96 S.Ct. at 1021, 47 L.Ed.2d at 264. In contrast, Ristaino involved the conviction of blacks for armed robbery and assault offenses against a white security guard. The Supreme Court held that the mere fact of different racial identity did not give rise to a constitutional right to specific inquiry about racial prejudice. Id. 424 U.S. at 598, 96 S.Ct. at 1022, 47 L.Ed.2d at 265.

In a subsequent case, the Court distinguished the constitutional issue involved in Ham and Ristaino and imposed a supervisory rule on federal trial courts requiring specific inquiry into racial prejudice on voir dire when requested by a defendant accused of violent crime against a person of a different race. Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U.S. 182, 192, 101 S.Ct. 1629, 1636, 68 L.Ed.2d 22, 31 (1981) (plurality opinion). We now hold that trial courts in Iowa should make or permit counsel to make specific inquiry into racial prejudice upon proper request in similar circumstances and in any case in which a reasonable possibility exists that the verdict might be affected by racial prejudice. We also hold, however, that, absent special circumstances of the nature delineated in Ham, the inquiry may be limited to a question of the panel sufficient to call the jurors' attention to the...