ACDL-NJ Opposes Reduction in Peremptory Challenges

ACDL-NJ Opposes Reduction in Peremptory Challenges
Posted on Tuesday Nov. 29, 2005

October 18, 2005

Hon. Philip S. Carchman, J.A.D.
Acting Administrative Director of the Courts
Administrative Office of the Courts
Hughes Justice Complex
Box 037
Trenton, NJ 08625-0037

Re: Report of Supreme Court Special Committee on Peremptory Challenges and Jury Voir Dire

Dear Judge Carchman:

On behalf of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey and its over 400 members, I am writing to express the Association’s objection to Recommendation No. 8 of the Committee’s majority report. While the Association applauds the Committee’s efforts to improve the jury voir dire process, these untested proposals do not provide a justification for such a radical departure from the current and long established number of peremptory challenges in criminal cases. The Association strenuously urges the Committee to adopt the minority report and make no changes at this time.

It is the importance of the public’s and the defendant’s perception that the criminal justice process is fair – that a defendant truly is being tried by a fair and impartial jury of his peers – that trumps all other concerns about the current process, especially those based upon perceived economic and institutional efficiency. If there is a fail-safe aspect to our State’s system of criminal justice, it is and has been the number of peremptory challenges accorded a defendant in a criminal case. The base line of 20 challenges assures the defendant a substantial say in who will decide his fate, and requires no correction or apology.

Experience has shown that the voir dire process has never been conducted in a consistent fashion in this State. Coupling such reforms with a deep and simultaneous reduction in peremptory challenges unquestionably produces a substantial risk of undermining the actual and perceived fairness of criminal trials in New Jersey. Time will tell if the voir dire revisions will substantially improve the jury selection process or not, however, New Jersey’s longstanding number of jury challenges should not be swept away when its function has so well preserved the perception and reality of fair and impartial jury selection for decades.

For these and reasons also expressed in the minority report and the October letter from our former President Joseph Hayden on behalf of the Association’s past Presidents, we ask that the Committee maintain the current levels of peremptory challenges. We further urge the Supreme Court itself to hear oral argument on the subject before any change is made.

Respectfully,

Robert S. Bonney, Jr.
President

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