A Gilpin County judge stopped a defense attorney from questioning prospective jurors about their bias, leading the Colorado Court of Appeals to overturn the convictions and 24-year sentence of the defendant.
“Here, the trial court not only prohibited defense counsel from asking a proper question, but it also refused counsel’s request to approach the bench and discuss how it might address these topics in a permissible manner,” wrote Judge Ted C. Tow III in a Dec. 17 opinion.
Prosecutors charged Michelle Re Nae Bialas with six criminal counts, including for assault, burglary and violating a protection order, stemming from a 2017 incident with her boyfriend. A jury found her not guilty of first-degree murder, but convicted her of the remaining charges. She received a 24-year sentence for the assault conviction, and was to serve time for the other convictions concurrently.
Prior to the incident, Bialas was subject to a protection order. It prohibited her from contacting her boyfriend in person or visiting his home. During jury selection, Bialas’s attorney tried to ascertain whether the existence of a protection order would bias jurors toward assuming his client's guilt.
"If you hear that a protection order existed and now a person is charged with violation of a protection order, in addition to a number of other things, do you think it’s more likely that the person committed the offenses?” he asked. “I’m asking for whether you think it is more likely.”
District Court Judge Dennis J. Hall agreed with the prosecutor’s objection that the question was “too close to the facts.” The defense attorney rephrased the question and tried again.
“If you heard that a person did something bad in the past and they’re accused of something again, do you think that makes them more likely that they did it this time?” he said.
Hall again disallowed the question. When Bialas’s attorney asked to approach him to discuss, Hall refused.
During the trial, there was no explanation about the reason for the protection order — even though four jurors submitted questions about why it existed. Hall rebuffed the inquiries.
Courts may disqualify prospective jurors who indicate a bias against or in favor of either side. By disallowing her attorney from asking if jurors would hold her past actions against her, Bialas claimed Hall denied her the ability to expose bias.
The three-member Court of Appeals panel agreed.
“[J]urors may have inferred that because Bialas did something bad in the past, she must have done so this time,” wrote Tow. “Indeed, four jurors submitted a question after [the victim's] testimony, each inquiring about the reasons why he had obtained a protection order against Bialas. It is therefore clear that this was an issue for several jurors.”
By blocking a hypothetical question that did not reference the protection order but could have illustrated whether a juror had trouble with the concept of innocent until proven guilty, Hall, who has since retired from the bench, did not permit the defense to fulfill its mission during jury selection — also known as voir dire.
The appeals panel reversed Bialas’s convictions and ordered a new trial. The case is People v. Bialas.
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