Defendant's right to a fair trial by impartial jury

QUESTIONS PRESENTED This petition involves questions of exceptional importance for jury selection in trials in all jurisdictions across our nation, involving the process for seating a jury to assure every defendant his or her Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial by a fair and impartial jury, as follows: 1. Is a defendant’s right to a fair trial denied when every single juror seated on his jury is permitted to remain silent rather than answer important questions asked of them during jury selection? 2. Is a defendant in a criminal trial denied a fair and impartial jury when all of the jurors who were selected and seated on the jury had been asked several important questions calling for a “yes or no” answer and none of these jurors answered a single one of these important questions? 3. If every prosecutive juror within the jury venire is asked 32 questions and not a single prospective juror gives any verbal answer to any of these questions, including questions that call for a yes or no answer even when the question includes phrases that call for a verbal answer such as, “Does everyone understand that principle?”; “Do you all understand that?”; “Do you think you could be fair and impartial?”; “Will all of you agree to apply the same standards for judging credibility. . . ?”; ii “Do you agree to abide by those instructions?”; and “If you were on trial, would you be willing to be tried by a jury with someone who has the same frame of mind as yours?”; (1) can it be said that defendant was able to effectively use his preemptory challenges?; and (2) can the defendant be assured that his guilt or innocence is being decided by a fair and impartial jury? 4. Did the judge deny the petitioner a fair trial when she improperly allowed all of the prospective jurors to choose not to answer questions that called for a specific answer, when she gave them the option to not answer any of the questions by deferring to the prospective jurors’ preferences when stating, “if you... want to respond to ... any of these questions, I ask that you raise your hand”? (emphasis added) (R. 55, PageID 482). li