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Conviction Reversed—Court Denied For Cause Challenge to Biased Juror Without Eliciting an Unequivocal Assurance the Juror Will Be Impartial

The Second Department reversed defendant’s conviction because an admittedly biased juror was not eliminated after defendant’s “for cause” challenge.  (Defendant exhausted his peremptory challenges.):

When a question is raised regarding a prospective juror’s ability to render an impartial verdict, the prospective juror must expressly state in unequivocal terms that “his prior state of mind concerning either the case or either of the parties will not influence his verdict, and he must also state that he will render an impartial verdict based solely on the evidence” … . In considering whether such statements are unequivocal, the juror’s testimony must be taken as a whole, and where there remains any doubt, the prospective juror should be discharged for cause … . Thus, when a potential juror states that he or she questions or doubts that he or she can be fair in the case, the trial judge should either elicit some unequivocal assurance of the juror’s ability to be impartial or excuse the juror … .

Here, as the prospective juror stated that she could not believe that police officers would get on the witness stand and lie about a person selling drugs, the court erred in denying the defendant’s challenge for cause without first eliciting some unequivocal assurance of the juror’s ability to be impartial … . People v Harris, 2015 NY Slip Op 00554, 2nd Dept 1-21-15

 

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