I have a case coming up for trial where the defendant gets a mandatory life sentence when convicted of this sexual assault of a child. I am not sure how to voir dire the jury on this without it being obvious the guy is a convicted sex offender. Any ideas on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.

Kerry Spears

The law permits you to inform the jury of the potential punishment range, you just have to do it hypothetically.

So, you can say that the punishment range for a sex offender who has a prior conviction for a sex offense is life in prison. Emphasize that you are speaking hypothetically and are not implying anything about the particular defendant on trial.

Just don't discuss the details of the defendant's prior conviction or read anything from the indictment. You could even consider not even talking about it being a prior sex offense. Out of an abundance of caution, you could just say, "If a defendant has a prior conviction for certain types of crimes, the sentence is automatically life in prison."

As a way of reassuring the jury, you also could talk about probation, as if the defendant had no prior conviction. Of course, that would be a much shorter conversation and more realistically hypothetical.

I did a Voir Dire on one of these and did essentially the same thing John advises. It is the same idea you use when you voir dire on a habitual. "The punishment range for this offense is 2-20 and in some instances may be as high as Life in prison" I made sure the Court and the defense attorney knew where I would be going and how far I would take it before Voir dire. We didn't have any problems.

I have done a voir dire on an automatic Life and, trust me, it will be obvious to anyone paying attention that the perv had been convicted before of the same thing. However, you have a right to qualify a potential juror on the entire punishment range, including auto life (Imagine that, the law actually working in favor of the State). This is something that should work to your advantate. I would spend alot of time talking about it so that everyone understands that you consider it important to the case, not just token discussion. Who knows, maybe the jury will think about your voir dire if the evidence is close. Just be careful like you would for a habitual offender.