Riley v. StateRiley v. State
Elmer Junior Riley was indicted for the unlawful distribution of a controlled substance in violation of
The appellant does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence and, thus, we need not recite the facts of this case. The only issue raised on appeal concerns the court’s failure to grant the appellant’s motion for new trial based on alleged juror misconduct. The following evidence was taken at the hearing on the motion for new trial.
On June 25, 1990, a jury was struck in this ease following voir dire examination of the venire by the trial court. For some reаson, the case was not tried until July 13, 1990. During the interim period between June 25 and July 13, one of the jurors,
B.H. testified that she never told the judge or the prosecutor аbout her stepson and that she did not know about his prosecution until after she had already been chosen to serve on the jury. She also stated that she did not know prior to trial that the defensе counsel’s firm represented the company that owned one of the airplanes which her stepson had allegedly misused. B.H. stated that her verdict was not influenced in any way by the knowledge that her stepson was being prosecuted or that a member of defense counsel’s firm represented a complainant against her stepson.
Defense counsel first learned of this problem prior to the trial when the prosecutor brought this matter to his attention after the two altеrnate jurors had been dismissed. When defense counsel brought this matter to the attention of the trial judgе, the trial judge instructed him to bring the matter up in a post-trial motion. Following trial, defense counsel made a motion for new trial. After listening to the evidence at the hearing on the motion for new triаl, the trial judge denied the motion.
The appellant contends that the trial judge erred by refusing to grant his motion for a new trial because he was entitled to “true and honest answers to voir dire questiоns” from B.H. and to “information that would show [B.H.’s] bias or prejudice.” (Appellant’s brief, p. 10.) We disagree.
“Certainly, we recognize that parties have a right to have questions answered truthfully by prospective jurors to enable wise and informed exercise of their peremptory strikes and that when jurors fail to answer questions correctly, the parties are denied the exercise of that right.” Parish v. State,
Moreover, “ ‘the proper inquiry for the trial court on motion for new trial, grоunded on allegedly improper responses or lack of responses by prospeсtive jurors on voir dire, is whether this has resulted in probable prejudice to this movant.’ ” Warrick v. State,
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.