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State v. Guillory3/11/1998
the time of the ruling. The nature of the objection and grounds therefor shall be stated at the time of objection." In 1983, Article 800 was amended to delete an additional requirement that the Defendant must exhaust all peremptory challenges before he could appeal the refusal to sustain a challenge for cause.
Under the new version of Article 800, a defendant is now permitted to complain of a ruling refusing to sustain his challenge for cause even if he had not thereafter exercised all of his peremptory challenges. State v. Vanderpool, 493 So.2d 574, 575 (La. 1986). See also State v. Copeland, 530 So.2d 526 (La. 1988). In such a case, the defendant must be able to show some prejudice in order to overcome the requirement of La. Code Crim.P. art. 921 that " judgment or ruling shall not be reversed by an appellate court because of any error . . . which does not affect substantial rights of the accused."
While La. Code Crim.P. art. 800, as amended in 1983, no longer requires that the defendant exhaust his peremptory challenges in order to assign as error the denial of a challenge for cause, that Article does not provide that the erroneous denial of a challenge for cause is automatically reversible error. The defendant must still demonstrate prejudice arising from the ruling. In the present case, the five jurors the Defendant claims the trial Judge improperly denied challenges for cause were excused by the Defendant by exercise of his peremptory challenges. Therefore, the Defendant was not forced to accept any juror he did not want. Furthermore, the Defendant did not exhaust all of his remaining peremptory challenges.
The Defendant's arguments concerning the improper denial of challenges for cause are without merit since the Defendant cannot show prejudice resulting from the trial court's rulings. See Copeland, 530 So.2d 526; Vanderpool, 493 So.2d 574; State v. Johnson, 595 So.2d 789 (La. App. 2 Cir. 1992); State v. Burge, 498 So.2d 196 (La. App. 1 Cir. 1986).
No prejudice exists in the present case because the prospective jurors were removed by peremptory challenge and the Defendant still retained three unused peremptory challenges at the close of jury selection. Even if the trial court's rulings were considered erroneous, under these circumstances, the ruling did not affect Defendant's substantial rights.
The Defendant also argues that Tatiana Bates was improperly excused for cause. A review of the voir dire examination of Ms. Bates reveals that she was excused for cause because she testified she could not impose the death penalty even if the State proved aggravating circumstances. There was no error in granting this challenge for cause.
Finally, the Defendant claims a Batson objection was made for Joseph Solete, but the State argues that Solete was excused for cause since he would not impose the death penalty. Actually, the Batson objection was not raised when Mr. Solete was excused, but was raised later when Mr. Demon Edwards and other prospective jurors were excused after the trial Judge granted the State's challenges for cause. La. Code Crim.P. art. 800 provides in paragraph B, "the erroneous allowance to the state of a challenge for cause does not afford the defendant a ground for complaint, unless the effect of such ruling is the exercise by the state of more peremptory challenges than it is entitled to by law." The Defendant does not argue that the State was granted any additional peremptory challenges; in fact, the State exercised only five peremptory challenges during jury selection.
The prohibition against racially motivated removal of prospective jurors is found in La. Code Crim.P. art. 795(C) and it applies to peremp
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