THE PEOPLE &C., RESPONDENT, v. GUY ALSTON, APPELLANT.
THE PEOPLE &C., RESPONDENT, v. RODNEY MORRIS, APPELLANT.
88 N.Y.2d 519, 670 N.E.2d 426, 647 N.Y.S.2d 142 (1996).
June 28, 1996
1 No. 160 (1996 NY Int. 146)
2 No. 159 (1996 NY Int. 146)
Decided June 28, 1996
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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication
in the New York Reports.
No. 160:
Frank J. Loss, for Appellant.
Ilisa T. Fleischer, for Respondent.
No. 159:
Jeffrey I. Richman, for Appellant.
John J. Orlando, for Respondent.
New York State District Attorneys' Association, amicus curiae.
LEVINE, J.:
Defendants in these cases raise a common issue regarding the proper
construction of CPL 270.15, the statutory provision governing jury
selection: whether that section mandates that the People make all
their peremptory challenges to a particular array before the defendant
is required to make any, or if it permits the court to require both
parties to exercise peremptory challenges to a subset of jurors or
sequentially to individual jurors in a particular array.
In People v Alston, the court and the parties questioned the group of
prospective jurors seated in the jury box at the beginning of each
round of jury selection. Thereafter, challenges for cause were made,
first by the People, then the defense. The parties then executed their
peremptory challenges. In the first two rounds, the prosecution
exercised peremptory challenges with respect to the entire group of
prospective jurors seated in the jury box. The defense followed, also
exercising all its peremptory challenges to the entire panel sitting
in the box. After two rounds, seven jurors had been accepted by both
sides, sworn as trial jurors, and removed from the box. Fourteen
prospective jurors were then seated in the jury box, questioned, and
SNIPPETS:
THE PEOPLE &C., RESPONDENT, v. RODNEY MORRIS, APPELLANT.
This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the New York
New York State District Attorneys' Association,
Defendants in these cases raise a common issue regarding the proper construction of CPL
In People v Alston, the court and the parties questioned the group of prospective jurors
the prosecution exercised peremptory challenges with respect to the entire group of
A different method of jury selection was used in People v Morris.
Under their construction, the section confers on defendants a substantial right -- a tactical
Having sworn any jurors selected in the first round, the court may then either "direct that
CPL 270.15 "was included in the CPL in 1970 without any substantive changes from the old Code
This construction dovetails with the flexibility built into CPL 270.15which allows individual
It also avoids arbitrarily vesting criminal defendants whose trial judges use the efficient
The persuasiveness of the majority s contrary analysis is not enhanced by its reliance on the
that legislation has no bearing on the issue presented here concerning the order in which
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