Case Information
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T HE U TAH C OURT OF A PPEALS
S TATE OF U TAH , Appellee, v.
C ARL J OHN H OLM Appellant.
Opinion No. 20150623-CA Filed August 10, 2017 Third District Court, Salt Lake Department The Honorable Katie Bernards-Goodman No. 131905377 Richard G. Sorenson, Attorney for Appellant Simarjit S. Gill and Peter D. Leavitt, Attorneys for Appellee
J UDGE J ILL M. P OHLMAN authored this Opinion, in which J UDGES J. F REDERIC V OROS J R . and K ATE A. T OOMEY concurred.
POHLMAN, Judge: During his early morning commute Carl John Holm
drove through a red traffic light and collided with an oncoming vehicle, fatally injuring the vehicle’s passenger (Victim). Following a jury trial Holm was convicted of negligent homicide. On appeal Holm asserts that, during voir dire, the trial court should have permitted follow-up questioning of jurors who indicated they or someone close to them had been involved in a serious car accident. We conclude that the trial court 1. Judge J. Frederic Voros Jr. participated in this case as a member of the Utah Court of Appeals. He retired from the court before this decision issued.
exceeded its discretion by precluding such questioning, and we therefore reverse Holm’s conviction and remand for a new trial.
BACKGROUND The Collision Holm was driving to work early one morning when he approached an intersection connecting Bangerter Highway with State Route 201. Holm failed to stop at a red traffic light, drove into oncoming traffic, and collided with a passing vehicle. Victim, who was a passenger in the vehicle, died at the scene. Holm was charged with negligent homicide, a class A misdemeanor. See Utah Code Ann. § 76-5-206 (LexisNexis 2012). He pleaded not guilty and elected to have the charge tried by a jury.
Voir Dire During voir dire, the trial judge asked the pool of
approximately thirty jurors to indicate if they personally “ha[d] ever been involved in a serious car accident.” About one-third responded affirmatively. Holm’s counsel then requested that the trial court “ask [the jurors] if anyone close to [them] ha[d] been involved in a serious car accident.” The court responded with the concern that “everybody” would answer affirmatively, and the prosecution suggested limiting individual questioning to those prospective jurors who felt the “experience [would] affect [their] ability to be fair and impartial.” The court agreed to do so, although Holm’s counsel reiterated that he “would like to talk to everybody.” The trial court then asked the jurors whether anyone close
to them had been involved in a serious car accident. Again, about one-third responded affirmatively. The court then asked, “Those of you [who] have been or know somebody close to you [who] has been in a car accident, is there anything about that experience that makes you feel like you might be biased for one side or the other?” Four persons indicated they might feel such bias. The court then began questioning jurors individually,
primarily those who had indicated potential bias based on personal experience or the experience of someone close to them. Holm’s counsel reiterated that he “would like to talk with every single person . . . [who had been] involved in a serious car accident or [whose] close friend was involved in a serious car accident[,] just to know the circumstances.” The court stated that such questioning would involve “every single person” in the jury pool and noted that those who had indicated potential bias were being pulled in for questioning. Holm’s counsel responded, “I would like to talk to them, but I understand the [c]ourt’s ruling.” The trial court later stated, “[I]f . . . everyone who has ever been in a car accident ends up stricken, we would not have enough people . . . . So those who said that they are not going to be biased about that, we’re not going to talk to.” Holm’s counsel replied, “[F]or the record, the Defense would like to talk to them.” Of the four jurors who indicated potential bias, two were
struck for cause, one was excluded via Holm’s peremptory challenge, and the last was sufficiently deep in the jury pool that individual questioning was unnecessary. But a majority of the jurors selected for Holm’s trial had indicated personal involvement or the involvement of someone close to them in a serious car accident. Because those jurors had not affirmatively disclosed potential bias, none was individually questioned on that subject.
The Verdict The jury found Holm guilty of negligent homicide, and he
was sentenced to a one-year term of imprisonment. He appeals.
ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW Holm contends the trial court abused its discretion by
denying him “the opportunity to conduct individual voir dire on
potential jurors who indicated they or a close friend had been
involved in a serious car accident.” “We review a judge’s
decision imposing limits on voir dire questioning for an abuse of
discretion.”
State v. Reece
,
ANALYSIS Holm asserts the trial court exceeded its discretion by
declining his “request to speak to each juror individually who indicated they or someone close to them had been involved in a serious car accident.” He contends “[r]easonable and detailed inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the jurors’ . . . experience with serious car accidents was necessary and imperative where it may have revealed a bias against someone who causes a car accident” and “would . . . have given [him] more information when exercising his right to peremptory challenges.” The purpose of voir dire is to detect actual bias and to
facilitate the informed exercise of peremptory challenges. Reece 2015 UT 45, ¶ 45. In achieving that objective, trial courts generally “should be permissive in allowing voir dire questions and should exercise their discretion in favor of allowing counsel to elicit information from prospective jurors.” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
2. Holm asserts additional bases for reversal, but we need not address those issues because we reverse Holm’s conviction and remand for a new trial due to error in the trial court’s handling of voir dire. A trial court’s discretion in limiting voir dire varies with
the subject area and its connection to the proceeding.
See State v.
Saunders
,
potential bias, the court’s discretion narrows, and when
requested “voir dire questions go directly to the existence of . . .
actual bias, [the court’s] discretion disappears. The trial court
must allow such inquiries.”
Id.
;
see also State v. Boyatt
, 854 P.2d
550, 552 (Utah Ct. App. 1993) (“[T]he trial court must adequately
probe a juror’s potential bias when that juror’s responses or
other facts suggest a potential bias.”). While a trial court need
not ask every question requested on a given topic nor ask
proposed questions in a particular manner, a trial court must,
“considering the totality of the questioning,” afford counsel “an
adequate opportunity to gain the information necessary to
evaluate the jurors.”
Reece
,
liable for causing a fatal car collision. Holm sought to ask follow-
up questions of jurors who indicated they had personally
experienced a serious car accident or were close to someone who
had—an inquiry relevant to uncovering actual bias, which also
would have probed potential bias and would likely have
generated data essential to counsel’s informed exercise of
peremptory challenges. In this context, the jurors’ responses
raised sufficient questions regarding potential bias to require the
trial court to permit further questioning along the lines Holm
requested.
See, e.g.
,
State v. King
,
“anything about that experience” would lead the juror to “feel like [he or she] might be biased for one side or the other.” None of the four persons who responded affirmatively served as a juror for Holm’s trial. But a majority of the jurors ultimately seated had indicated personal involvement, or the involvement of someone close to them, in a serious car accident; none had been questioned in that regard; and despite Holm’s request, no other questions were asked to elicit additional details in that respect. “Ruling that a prospective juror is qualified to sit simply
because he says he will be fair ignores the common-sense psychological and legal reality” that jurors may not independently recognize their biases and also know little about the case and thus “cannot anticipate how [they] will react when 3. We are troubled by the trial court’s implicit suggestion that it would avoid asking questions that might lead to the discovery of bias among a high percentage of the jury pool. Regardless of whether the subject matter is a common one, and recognizing that some cases may require a greater number of individualized inquiries than others, a trial court remains obligated to carry out voir dire in a manner consistent with detecting actual bias and facilitating the informed exercise of peremptory challenges. asked to decide a case once all the facts are known.” State v. Saunders , 1999 UT 59, ¶ 35, 992 P.2d 951. Indeed, the “most characteristic feature of prejudice is its inability to recognize itself. It is unrealistic to expect that any but the most sensitive and thoughtful jurors (frequently those least likely to be biased) will have the personal insight, candor and openness to raise their hands in court and declare themselves biased.” State v. Ball , 685 P.2d 1055, 1058 (Utah 1984). Thus, a juror’s statement professing ability to fairly apply
the law as “given by the trial court is not a sufficient basis for
qualifying a juror to sit when the prospective juror’s answers
provide evidence of possible bias and the trial court does not
allow further questions designed to probe the extent and the
depth of the bias.”
Saunders
, 1999 UT 59, ¶ 36. In this case, the
trial court’s follow-up question rested on the self-awareness and
self-reporting of bias on a matter “directly related to the offense[]
for which [Holm] was convicted,” for which no “specific follow-
up question[s]” were permitted, on topics that did not appear to
be “deeply personal.”
Cf. State v. Reece
,
that the trial court” exceeded its discretion in unduly limiting the
scope of voir dire.
Alcazar v. University of Utah Hosps. & Clinics
,
experiences and the experiences of persons close to them in
serious car collisions—this was the type of event for which Holm
was on trial; a majority of the jurors who decided Holm’s guilt
acknowledged such experience; no follow-up questions were
permitted, and no further details regarding those experiences
were obtained during voir dire. As noted above, the entirety of
the trial court’s permitted questioning on the subject relied on
jurors personally identifying and acknowledging potential or
actual bias—an inadequate inquiry that left Holm “without the
necessary information . . . to ferret out a potential juror’s actual
4. We apply the substantial impairment test here, as we have in
prior cases.
See, e.g.
,
Alcazar v. University of Utah Hosps. & Clinics
bias or to intelligently exercise peremptory challenges, thus prejudicing [him].” See Alcazar , 2008 UT App 222, ¶ 18. In light of the dearth of information available to Holm on these issues, his right to the informed exercise of peremptory challenges was significantly impaired, see id. ¶¶ 18–19, and we therefore reverse his conviction and remand for a new trial.
CONCLUSION Because the trial court exceeded its discretion by denying
Holm’s request for follow-up questioning during voir dire, we reverse Holm’s conviction and remand for a new trial.