CERVANTE PEARSON v. STATE OF MARYLAND
Court of Appeals, Watts, Filed Feb. 21, 2014,
Voir Dire- On request, must ask panel “Do any of you have strong feelings about
[the crime with which the defendant is charged]?” and then follow-up asking whether they could be fair and impartial. Error to compound both questions into one.

The trial court listened to the Court of Appeals. No laugh-track provided where the Court of Appeals now holds that decision to be an abuse of discretion.

In 2011’s State v. Shim, the court recommended a voir dire question that called on the juror to decide if they “have such strong feelings about [the charges in this case] that it would be difficult for you to fairly and impartially weigh the facts.”

Because that called on the juror to decide if they were biased instead of letting the trial court decide, the 2014 court has declared that this form of voir dire is inappropriate.

Instead, the 2014 court wants the subject matter asked in the form of a general voir dire question “do you have strong feelings about X” and then, at the bench, ask the juror if they could still be fair and impartial…

Of course, this still leaves “responsibility to decide a prospective juror’s bias” in the hands of the juror… and works against the avoidance of “expenditure of time and resources” of asking “follow-up questions of every single prospective juror who responds affirmatively” that J. Watts used as justification for not requiring the “victim” question in voir dire.

What the Court of Appeals COULD have said, but explicitly came out against, was that this denies counsel information that they could use to intelligently exercise peremptory challenges.

This may have broken up the dynamic duo J. Watts and J. McDonald, who (despite agreeing with one or two of J. Watts’ earlier questionable opinions) now dissents.

Other notes from the case related to Voir Dire:
– Holdings from this case apply prospectively (though the world “only” would have been helpful, since pretty much all CoA opinions apply prospectively…)
– A trial court need not ask whether prospective jurors have been the victim of a crime
– Where all of the State’s witnesses are members of law enforcement agencies and/or where the basis for a conviction is reasonably likely to be the testimony of members of law enforcement agencies, a trial court must, upon request, inquire as to whether a prospective juror him or herself is a member of a law enforcement agency.
– An affirmative response to either the “law enforcement” or “strong feelings” question is not an automatic disqualification
– Davis v. State, 333 Md. 27, 31 (1993) is overruled regarding the propriety of the “member of a law enforcement agency” voir dire question
– In Maryland, the sole purpose of voir dire is to ensure a fair and
impartial jury by determining the existence of specific cause for disqualification
– Intelligent exercise of peremptory challenges” is not a purpose of voir dire in Maryland
– There are two categories of specific cause for disqualification: (1) a statute disqualifies a prospective juror; or (2) a “collateral matter [is] reasonably liable to have undue influence over” a prospective juror
– Voir Dire regarding a prospective juror’s experience, status, association, or affiliation must be asked if it has a demonstrably strong correlation with a mental sate that gives rise to specific cause for disqualification