 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Fortin2/3/2004
e impact that this evidence is going to have on any potential juror.... So, at least, the exercise of our peremptory challenges are done with a knowledge of... whether anybody is going to be biased by... hearing [about] the Maine case.
The State did not resist defendant's request. The trial court, however, was not persuaded:
I hope that this is the last time I have to address this business of whether or not I should set forth, with particularity, the details of the 404[(b) evidence].... There is no way that I could present that in a vacuum. It would be presented without this jury having heard the first word of evidence.
To hit them with what the defendant's alleged conduct was in Maine, would be totally unfair. It would truly affect the ability of any juror to be fair and impartial. When this evidence is presented in the proper context, with the proper instructions, when they already have heard evidence concerning the charge against the defendant,... they will know how to put it in that prospective .
The court excused another juror, C.F., for cause sua sponte because he too remembered from reading the newspapers "something about" defendant's Maine crime against a state trooper, and admitted that he would "probably have some prejudice." Undeterred, defendant renewed his voir dire request, only to have it denied again.
The court also denied defendant's request that it question J.B., a panelist with "numerous friends" in local law enforcement, as to whether the Maine-crime evidence would undermine his ability to remain impartial. The court reasoned that J.B., like the other panelists with close ties to law enforcement, had not indicated that he had "close female friends... law enforcement," and that it did not "follow" that a juror with such ties would be "more aggrieved at any law enforcement person being assaulted." (Emphasis added). The court also denied defendant's request to excuse for cause R.S., an East Jersey State Prison plumber who had twice been assaulted by inmates and whose daughter had been dating a Carteret police officer for ten years, and C.M., a New Jersey State Prison corrections officer in Trenton with an uncle on the Sayreville police force.
Defendant exercised the last of his twenty peremptory challenges to remove R.S. from the panel. Although defendant requested three additional peremptory challenges, the court granted only one to allow the removal of C.M. Defendant was not permitted the additional two challenges requested to "make up for the one... used for [R.S.]," and to remove M.C., who was related by marriage to a state trooper, and was "nervous" about the case because she frequented the area where Padilla had been killed.
In all, the trial court questioned 154 potential jurors. The court removed many jurors for cause, including twenty-seven who had ties to law enforcement, and twenty-two who admitted that they could not be impartial after hearing the nature of the charges in the Padilla case. Of the eighteen jurors with law enforcement connections not disqualified by the court for cause, the defense removed ten, and the State two, by peremptory challenges. Thus, six individuals with law enforcement ties became sworn jurors, and five of those six became deliberating jurors.
After the jury was sworn and impaneled, the prosecutor gave his opening remarks, in which he predictably and properly discoursed on the Maine crime and its relationship to the State's other proofs. The prosecutor described both Padilla's murder and defendant's attack on Trooper Gardner in Maine:
He attacked that female State Trooper. He beat her. He sexually assaulted her. He strangled her into uncons
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 New Jersey DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|