State v. Morales
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The Supreme Court affirmed Defendant's conviction of one count of sexual intercourse without consent, holding that the district court did not err in denying Defendant's motion to strike a prospective juror for cause.
After the district court denied Defendant's motion to remove the prospective juror for cause Defendant used a peremptory challenge to strike her from the panel and exhausted all of his peremptory challenges. Defendant appealed, arguing (1) the prospective juror's voir dire statements demonstrated an inability to act fairly and impartially in his trial, and therefore, the district court abused its discretion in denying his for-cause challenge; and (2) because he had to exercise a peremptory strike to remove the juror and subsequently exhausted his peremptory challenges, the error was prejudicial. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in accepting the prospective juror's assurances that she could fairly and impartially weigh the evidence despite her initial statements of prejudice.
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