STROUD
v.
UNITED STATES
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Stroud was convicted of first-degree murder and sought rehearing after the Supreme Court affirmed his conviction, challenging the trial court's refusal to sustain his challenge for cause against juror Williamson, who testified he would impose capital punishment upon conviction. The Court denied rehearing, holding that even assuming the challenge for cause should have been sustained, the error was not prejudicial because the defendant had twenty-one peremptory challenges available (one more than the law allowed) and could have removed the juror through that mechanism.
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In this proceeding on November 24, 1919, this court affirmed the judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas rendered upon a verdict convicting the plaintiff in error of murder in the first degree. Ante, 15.
A petition for rehearing has been presented. It has been considered, and we find occasion to notice only so much thereof as refers to the refusal of the court below to sustain the plaintiff in error’s challenge for cause as to the juror Williamson. The other grounds urged have been examined and found to be without merit.
Williamson was called as a juror, and, as we said in our former opinion, was challenged for cause by the plaintiff in error. This challenge was overruled, and the juror was then challenged peremptorily by the accused.
The testimony of Williamson made it reasonably certain that in the event of conviction for murder in the first degree he would render no other verdict than one which required capital punishment. Granting that this challenge for cause should have been sustained, and that this ruling required the plaintiff in error to use one of his peremptory challenges to remove the juror from the panel, we held that the refusal to sustain the challenge was not prejudicial error as the record disclosed that the defendant was allowed twenty-two peremptory challenges, when the law allowed but twenty.
In the petition for rehearing it is alleged that the record discloses that in fact the accused was allowed twenty peremptory challenges and no more, and this allegation is accompanied by an affidavit of counsel giving the names of twenty persons challenged peremptorily by the plaintiff in error, and stating that no other peremptory challenges were allowed to him at the trial. In this statement the counsel is mistaken. An examination of the original transcript, as also the printed transcript, shows that a juror, H.
A. Shearer, was called and examined upon his voir dire, (printed transcript, p. 79) and later was peremptorily challenged by the plaintiff in error, (printed transcript, p. 143) and excused from the panel.
H. A. Shearer’s rifl.mfi does not appear upon the list of those as to whom peremptory challenges were made and sustained in plaintiff in error’s behalf as given in the petition and affidavit for a rehearing." It does appear in the transcript that plaintiff in. error was allowed twenty-one peremptory challenges, and it follows that his right to exercise such challenges was not abridged to his prejudice by the failure to allow the single challenge for cause which in our opinion should have been sustained by the trial judge.
Furthermore, the record shows that after the ruling and challenge as to Williamson, the plaintiff in error had other peremptory challenges which he might have used; and the record does not disclose that other than an impartial jury sat on the trial. See Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131, 168, and cases cited.
It follows that the petition for rehearing must be denied.
So ordered,
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Thomas v. State, 403 So. 2d 371 (Fla. 1981)…stion at least twice, and on both occasions have found that jurors with pre [*376] dispositions concerning sentencing in capital eases should have been excused. See Stroud v. United States, 251 U.S. 15, 40 S.Ct. 50, 64 L.Ed. 103 (1919), reh. denied, 251 U.S. 380, 40 S.Ct. 176, 64 L.Ed. 317 (1920); Crawford v. Bounds, 395 F. 2d 297, 304 (4th Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 936, 90 S.Ct. 941, 25 L.Ed.2d 117 (1970). Although the jury’s role in the sentencing phase is an advisory one, it is significant to a…
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Ross v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 81 (U.S. 1988)…peremptory challenges occurs if the defendant uses one or more challenges to remove jurors who should have been excused for cause. See Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202, 219 (1965); cf. Spies v. Illinois, 123 U. S. 131 (1887); Stroud v. United States, 251 U. S. 380, 382 (1920), denying rehearing to 251 U. S. 15 (1919). No claim is made here that the trial court repeatedly and deliberately misapplied the law in order to force petitioner to use his peremptory challenges to correct these errors.…
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United States v. Nell, 526 F.2d 1223 (5th Cir. 1976)…s has the effect of abridging the right to exercise peremptory challenges. See Swain v. Alabama, 1965, 380 U.S. 202, 85 S.Ct. 824, 13 L.Ed.2d 759; Stroud v. United States, 1919, 251 U.S. 15, 40 S.Ct. 50, 64 L.Ed. 103, petition for reh. denied, 1920, 251 U.S. 380, 40 S.Ct. 176, 64 L.Ed. 317 (jury point discussed further). At stake is the party’s right guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to an impartial jury; the principal way this right is implemented is through the system of challenges exercised during the vo…1 / 2
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- Spies v. Illinois, 123 U.S. 131 (U.S. 1887)