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People v. Leung4/9/1992
fendant, struggled with defendant and had then been shot. During voir dire, defense counsel attempted to inquire of a prospective juror whether, if so instructed, she would be able to conceive of a "hypothetical, reasonable and prudent man" in order to apply a reasonable person standard of conduct. ( at pp. 397-398, 410-411.) The prosecution's objection to the question was sustained. Defense counsel requested that he be permitted to ask the prospective jurors "whether they would willingly follow an instruction to the effect that a person has a right to resist an aggressor by using necessary force and has no duty to retreat." This request was denied. Counsel was permitted to ask the prospective jurors whether they would follow self-defense instructions even if they disagreed with the law. Two prospective jurors indicated some discomfort with doing so. ( at p. 398.)
On appeal, Williams asserted that the questions should not have been excluded "either because they may have led to challenges for cause and were therefore properly within the scope of the existing voir dire standard, or because they could have assisted counsel in the intelligent exercise of peremptory challenges ...." (29 Cal. 3d at p. 398.) The California Supreme Court criticized the Edwards rule as "arbitrary and difficult to apply, erratic in achievement of its desired end, and insensitive to the constitutional mandate that defendant be tried before a fair and impartial jury" and noted that "if it were applied with strict logic it would impose no significant
limitation on 'tedious examination.' " ( at p. 399.) "Because counsel can know if a question will expose bias only by awaiting the answer, and because the Judge must rule on the propriety of the question before the answer is given, the only limitation on the admissibility of a particular question under the Edwards rule is the Judge's ability or willingness to conceive of a possible response that would reveal legally cognizable bias." ( at p. 399.)
Since "direct and general inquiries about juror bias cannot be expected to uncover all forms of partiality," the exclusion of questions from voir dire examination must be carefully examined to determine whether the question could conceivably have elicited an answer showing any kind of bias. (29 Cal. 3d at p. 401.) The California Supreme Court examined the excluded questions to determine whether the inquiries had been improperly disallowed. The question about a prospective juror's ability to conceive of a hypothetical reasonable man was deemed properly excluded. "The question bears little potential for exposing prejudice or resistance to application of the law." ( at pp. 410-411.) On the other hand, as to the question about self-defense and the retreat rule, "because the inquiry foreclosed by the [trial] court bore a substantial likelihood of uncovering jury bias, the court abused its discretion by refusing to allow the proposed question." ( at p. 412, italics added.)
Apparently applying a Watson standard of prejudice, the California Supreme Court found it likely that the result would have been different had the jurors been adequately examined to assure that they bore no bias relating to the retreat rule and therefore reversed defendant's conviction. (People v. Williams, supra, 29 Cal. 3d at pp. 411-412, 415-416 (Richardson, J. dis.).) Nevertheless, "because of prior judicial reliance on Edwards, the rule we adopt herein applies to the defendant in the case at bar, but is otherwise limited to voir dire proceedings conducted after the present decision becomes final." ( at p. 412 fn. 15.)
Implicit in Williams is the assumption that res
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