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Davis v. Maryland12/9/1993
uiring the trial judge to ask questions that will produce such factual information as may be relevant to the venireperson's bias, the voir dire process will be rendered all but entirely useless. When the inquiries that constitute proper voir dire are restrictively interpreted, so that the voir dire process does not produce any information other than that which is automatically disqualifying, the defendant may be deprived of the right to a fair and impartial jury; he or she is completely at the mercy of the good faith, objectivity, and astuteness of the individual venirepersons. I believe that it is an abuse of discretion for the court to so restrict the voir dire process.
Under the rationale underlying the majority's view of voir dire, taken to its logical conclusion, all that would be necessary to empanel a legally sufficient jury is that the trial court ask the prospective jurors whether they could be fair and impartial. Only those jurors who confessed that they could not
would, or could, be challenged for cause. Because the voir dire has not produced any other information, the others would be absolutely insulated from challenge. The majority's recognition that, by virtue of our prior holdings and the Supreme Court's insistence, more than one omnibus question must be asked is not particularly comforting. By requiring that the connection between the cause for disqualification and the answer to the voir dire inquiry be direct, the majority greatly reduces the value of even those required inquiries and, indeed, all but nullifies their value in obtaining information useful as a basis for challenging venirepersons for cause.
The jury selection process in capital cases is instructive. In Bowie, we considered the adequacy of a voir dire examination into juror attitudes concerning the death penalty. The entire voir dire examination on that issue consisted of the following:
Ladies and gentlemen, the State of Maryland has filed a request before the court that if found guilty, Mr. Damon Bowie will be put to death. Is there any member of the prospective jury panel who has any feeling whatsoever about such a request, and I don't care which way you feel about it, that it would interfere with your ability to fairly and truly judge this matter based only on the evidence before the court?
Said another way, is there anybody in this room who has such feelings about the death penalty one way or the other way that it would affect you emotionally or to the extent that it would override your ability to judge this matter based only on the evidence brought out in the courtroom and the instructions of the court to you and the application of that evidence to the law? If you have a positive response, please stand in place.
324 Md. at 16, 595 A.2d at 455. Jurors who responded affirmatively were excused for cause. Id. The court overruled defendant's objection to that procedure.
This Court reversed. After reviewing the decisions in Witt, supra; Grandison v. State, 305 Md. 685, 506 A.2d 580, cert. Page 65} denied, 479 U.S. 873, 107 S.Ct. 38, 93 L.Ed.2d 174 (1986); and Hunt v. State, 321 Md. 387, 583 A.2d 218 (1990), we explained:
What occurred in the instant case is in no way similar to what occurred in Witt or in our cases applying Witt. In those cases, the basis for the juror's conclusion and, therefore, for the court's ruling was apparent in the record. All we have in this case is a trial judge's propounding of a question designed to elicit from prospective jurors their bottom line conclusion as to their ability
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