INDIANAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) – An Indiana Supreme Court opinion shows one roadmap for those who want to get out of jury duty.
On July 9, the court decided one juror should have been struck because he expressed reservation about awarding pain and suffering damages. The issue arose in a wrongful death lawsuit against a doctor.
The juror, named Dennis Miller, explained that he did want to serve, liked doctors and said he would not be able to assess noneconomic damages, in the event they were to be awarded.
“I’m just not sure. I just – I don’t think it’s my responsibility to determine the dollar amount,” Miller told the plaintiffs attorney.
Miller also told the lawyer “I want no part of it” and “I just don’t feel it is right. I don’t think I should have to do that.”
The lawyer representing the Estate of Kandace Pyles moved to strike Miller but it was denied by a trial judge who did not think Miller was biased against any particular party. The Court of Appeals reversed, ordering a new trial, a decision affirmed by the Supreme Court.
The jury ruled against the plaintiff, finding one of the doctors involved in the bariatric surgery that led to fatal complications was not negligent.
The Supreme Court noted that it hadn’t taken up the issue of whether “reluctant” jurors are biased until this case.
“This is not to say that every unwilling or reluctant juror is biased as there are times these unwilling or reluctant jurors can be rehabilitated, but under these circumstances, Miller stated repeatedly and emphatically that he could not render a decision about noneconomic damages,” Justice Steven David wrote.
Justice Mark Massa wrote the issue is a “landmine” that will eventually go off in a criminal case.
“(O)ne might ask why make counsel prolong voir dire when it would be more efficient to simply order a new trial any time a judge is reversed on a for-cause challenge?” he wrote. “Given the risk, why would a court ever deny a challenge for cause.”
Justice Geoffrey Slaughter, in a dissenting opinion, said there was evidence supporting both sides, so he would have deferred to the trial judge’s ruling.
“The Court’s failure to give deference to that finding prompts a related concern,” he wrote.
“It threatens to upend the careful balance we struck in Oswalt v. State – the balance between, on the one hand, the generous (some say ‘disproportionate’) remedy of a new trial for a jury-selection error and, on the other, a reviewing court’s overwhelming deference to the trial court’s ‘great discretion’ when ruling on motions to strike prospective jurors for cause.”