I have to say Judge Knize seemed to go quite a bit farther in telling the prospective jurors about their role than I have seen before. One wonders if this is his common practice, or arose only in this case. Mason

Justice Vance says this statement: "The first basic thing [in] every criminal case every defendant is presumed to be innocent. That doesn't mean that they are innocent," was the most damaging and was alone (when made by the trial judge) enough to taint the instruction the jury would later receive on the state's burden of proof. Is he right? That seems like very useful and truthful information to me.

I think it's pretty obvious. It's just pointing out to the jury that you have to start off presuming he's innocent, but the prosecution obviously is going to try to prove otherwise and may do so. I can see how it would make a defendant a little leery, and I might not use that wording myself, but I don't think it's improper...

I didn't see a dissent by Vance on there, though. (Just the note "Justice Vance dissenting.) Did I miss it?

For the dissent, click here.

Not the most elegant voir dire by a judge. Perhaps a good reason the judge should leave the opinionating to the lawyers.

I agree, Martin, that it seems useful. The arguments made by the appellant seem to imply that the jurors understand a lot of what goes on and all the language--and it's been my experience that they get frustrated by all the confusion over what small words mean and they just want to use common sense. My jurors ALWAYS ask me after trials why they didn't hear anything about criminal history. My trials always go to the judge for punishment, so I try to mention in voir dire that they won't hear anything one way or the other, but they still want a better explanation afterwards. (Especially when the defense sneaks in good character evidence, but my bad character evidence is so bad is still kept out).

And the "presumption" of innocence is confusing to jurors, too, because what the judge said in the Mason case is common sensical, and the jury gets frustrated when words are twisted and noone speaks common sense--too much lawyering in their opinions.

The defense voir dires I usually hear include asking each juror if the defendant is innocent, and none of them how to answer it, because they are all thinking "I'm reserving my opinion until I hear the evidence." And then they're told that they have to believe someone is innocent before they ever hear any evidence, or the lack thereof. I think the jurors try very hard to be fair and not assume someone is guilty right off the bat, but it's also unnatural for them to assume they are factually innocent (even if the law says they are legally presumed innocent at that time.)

That being said, if judges all gave that long of an admonition to the panel, and explained everything like that, my voir dires could move right along to other things that I run out of time for!

What the opinion fails to disclose is that Judge Knize's comments were made at juror qualification. No case had been called for trial, no defendant or attorneys were seated before the venire and the judge was picking several juries that day from the venire. In fact, Mason was not even the first case called for voir dire. One jury was picked from the venire before the Mason case was even called.

The Judge was qualifying the panel on the general principles of criminal law with nothing specific as to any of the cases that were picked that day.

It is obvious from the language used that the Judge communicates with the venire in words and concepts they can understand, not so much legalese, and if you read the comments, each one accurately states the law applicable to criminal cases.

Mason chose to interpret the comments in a manner to get him out of a conviction for beating his four week old son to death. Thankfully, 2 justices in Waco didn't buy it, just as the jury did not buy his claim that the 4-week old jumped out of his arms and injured himself.

It is quite significant to know that the comments came during general qualification of the panel and not voir dire over a specific case. That does make a big difference, as it is harder to infer that the judge was trying to influence the jury to convict a particular defendant.