In Jamal Charles and Dwayne Drake v. Maryland, the Maryland high court (Court of Appeals) recently overturned the murder convictions of two defendants because of the following voir dire question posed by the trial judge:
...if you are currently of the opinion or belief that you cannot convict a defendant without "scientific evidence," regardless of the other evidence in the case and regardless of the instructions that I will give you as to the law, please rise...
While the trial judge most likely asked this question to address the growing concerns over whether CSI and other related television shows improperly influence jurors, the issue here was more about how the question was posed rather than its substance. According to the Court of Appeals of Maryland: "Our concern here is with the language of the question, rather than its object."
In ordering a new trial for the defendants, the court held that "the trial judge abused his discretion by essentially instructing the jury to convict the defendants 'on the non-scientific evidence of the case'... the voir dire question at issue here suggested that the jury's only option was to convict, regardless of whether scientific evidence was adduced."
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