 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Guoth v. Hamilton5/25/2005
efendant] was incarcerated, his close identification with the criminal process, and his admitted familiarity with [the defendant] inherently raise inevitable questions regarding possible bias, fairness, prejudice or impermissible influence upon jury deliberations.
(Punctuation omitted.) Id. at 349 (1). Similarly, the nature of the juror's duties here as an employee of the hospital where Dr. Guoth worked and actually performed the acts in question, her close identification with the employees who told her negative things about Dr. Guoth, and her admitted familiarity with and distrust of Dr. Guoth inherently raised inevitable questions regarding possible bias, fairness, prejudice or impermissible influence upon jury deliberations. The trial court should have dismissed her for cause.
Contrary to plaintiff's arguments, the repeated, leading questions that eventually resulted in the juror's reversing her position and stating that she would try to hear the case impartially did not rehabilitate her. The tone, direction, and repetitive nature of the questions from the court and plaintiff's counsel clearly gave signals to the juror that she should acquiesce and lay claim to an ability to be impartial despite her strongly-held feelings and knowledge. See Walker v. State (court's questioning "was more an instruction on the desired answer than a neutral attempt to determine the juror's impartiality;" trial court abused its discretion) (punctuation omitted); Ivey v. State ("after being confronted repeatedly with variations of the rehabilitation question, she abandoned her own answers and adopted the court's words;" trial court abused its discretion); Foster v. State (lengthy and repeated questioning extracted statement of impartiality; trial court abused its discretion).
Accordingly, we hold that the obvious bias inherent in this juror's employment and particular knowledge of the party and of the facts of this case mandated that the court excuse her for cause, especially after she candidly admitted that such would interfere with her ability to be impartial. Her later acquiescence to the court's and plaintiff's repeated requests that she nevertheless be impartial did not rehabilitate her. See Park v. State ("jurors who have expressed a bias may well mistakenly believe they can set aside their preconceptions and inclinations - certainly every reasonable person wants to believe he or she is capable of doing so"). (Punctuation omitted.)The trial court abused its discretion in not dismissing her from the panel.
Failure to dismiss a juror for cause is reversible error in criminal cases even if the defendant did not exhaust all his peremptory challenges. Wallace v. State. Although this rule has not been expressly applied to civil cases, that is irrelevant here, as the record reflects that Dr. Guoth exhausted all his peremptory challenges. See OCGA ยงยง 15-12-122 (b) (6 peremptory strikes allowed to each party from full panel of 24); 9-11-47 (b) (additional peremptory challenge allowed where alternates chosen). "As all the [defendant's] peremptory challenges were exhausted in this case, a new trial is required." Meintzer v. Weinberg.
Finally, " s we stated in Cannon v. State, we deplore the significant burden a retrial will impose, not only on the [parties], but on the community as well. We are particularly troubled by the trial court's willingness to infect a trial with this kind of error when a solution (excusing the juror for partiality) was so readily available." (Punctuation omitted.) Park, supra at 881-882 (1).
2. Based on our decision in Division 1, the remaining enumerations of error are moot.
Judgment reversed and case remanded for new trial.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 Georgia Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|