Appellate Review of Claim of Biased Juror Waived By Failure to Object

State v. Geleneau, Jr., Minn.Ct.App., 12/21/2015.  The state charged Mr. Geleneau, Jr. with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct.  In this combined direct appeal and appeal of the denial of a post conviction petition the focus is on jury selection.  Mr. Geleneau, Jr. said that the trial court had erred by not dismissing two prospective jurors for cause sua sponte.  He also said that he trial counsel had been ineffective for not moving to strike these two prospective jurors for cause.

The long and the short of it is that because trial counsel expressly waived his right to challenge the prospective jurors for cause - "That's all the questions I have this afternoon.  I pass [the panel] for cause, Your Honor." - Mr. Geleneau, Jr. could not complain on direct appeal that the trial judge should have done the work for him. Both the rules and prior case law say that counsel has to object, in this case by moving to strike the prospective jurors for cause in order to seek appellate relief.  The absence of an objection is enough, by itself, to reject a biased-juror argument on appeal. The court implies but ultimately ducks saying that a trial court never has an obligation to strike a biased juror sua sponte.

Turing to the ineffective assistance claim the court Mr. Geleneau, Jr. did not argue that trial counsel was obligated to allow a defendant to make decisions about keeping or striking prospective jurors.  That makes the failure to have moved to strike for cause a discretionary call by trial counsel.  The trial court wrote a lengthy rationale supporting trial counsel's decision not to seek to strike the two prospective jurors, which the court of appeals accepts.  Read that yourself and agree or disagree with it.

What's more intriguing is the court's dismissal of an affidavit from an unnamed "experienced criminal defense attorney" who reviewed only a three-page summary of the transcript of voir dire which had been prepared by post conviction counsel:

[The] opinions offered by the experienced criminal defense attorney are incapable of proving that the strategic decisions of trial counsel, who was present in the courtroom and undoubtedly had multiple sources of information about the prospective jurors, were below an objectively reasonable standard of performance.