CAUSE NO. ______

THE STATE OF TEXAS				§	IN THE _________________COURT
							§	
V.							§	_______________ COUNTY, TEXAS
							§
[DEFENDANT]					§	__________TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT

MOTION FOR ADDITIONAL TIME TO CONDUCT VOIR DIRE

TO THE HONORABLE JUDGE OF SAID COURT:

	NOW COMES, ______________, Defendant in the above styled and numbered cause, by and through his undersigned counsel and pursuant to the 6th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution and files this his Motion For Additional Time to Conduct Voir Dire and in support will show the following:
I.
	Defendant is presently charged with the offense of [Charge or Accusation].
II.
	In order to render reasonably effective assistance of counsel and assure Defendant receives a fair and impartial jury trial, it is necessary for undersigned counsel to extensively voir dire the jury panel on certain principles of law, burden of proof, defenses, and any bias or prejudice which a potential juror may harbor.  Adequate time to voir dire the jury is essential to counsel's intelligent exercise of peremptory strikes.
III.
	Undersigned counsel is prepared to proffer to the Court a list of questions it intends to present to the jurors, thereby demonstrating that said questions are not irrelevant, immaterial or repetitious.
	Undersigned counsel specifically requests no more than three hours per side to voir dire the jury.
V.
	To unreasonably limit the time for voir dire will deny the defendant a fair trial and effective assistance of counsel as guaranteed by the United States and Texas Constitutions.
VI.
	Defendant’s  request is reasonable in light of the Court of Criminal Appeals decisions in De La Rosa v. State, 414 S.W.2d 668 (Tex. Crim. App. 1967) (allowing only 20 minutes for voir dire was found to be unreasonable); Clark v. State, 608 S.W.2d 667 (Tex. Crim. App. 1980) (trial court reversibly erred in unduly restricting the extent of voir dire examinations in that the defendant could not intelligently exercise his right to make peremptory challenges).

	WHEREFORE PREMISES CONSIDERED, Defendant respectfully prays the Honorable Court grant this Motion For Additional Time To Conduct Voir Dire in order that he be entitled to voir dire for a period of up to three hours and for such other and further relief as this Honorable Court deems necessary and just.
	
							Respectfully Submitted,

							____________________________________
							Attorney Name
							State Bar Number
							Address
							City, State, Zip
							Phone 
							Fax

							ATTORNEY FOR DEFENDANT

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
	I hereby certify that a true and correct copy of the foregoing Motion has been hand delivered to the District Attorney's Office,_____________County, Texas on this___________day of _________, 20___

							___________________________________
							Attorney for Defendant

CAUSE NO.________________

THE STATE OF TEXAS				§	IN THE _________________COURT
							§	
V.							§	_______________ COUNTY, TEXAS
							§
[DEFENDANT]					§	__________TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT

ORDER ON DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR ADDITIONAL TIME TO CONDUCT VOIR DIRE

	On this the_______day of __________, 200__, the foregoing Motion was duly presented to the Court and after due consideration, the Court is of the opinion that the same should be and it is hereby:
							_______________GRANTED
							_______________DENIED

							__________________________________
							JUDGE PRESIDING

CAUSE NO.________________

THE STATE OF TEXAS				§	IN THE _________________COURT
							§	
V.							§	_______________ COUNTY, TEXAS
							§
[DEFENDANT]					§	__________TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT

MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT  OF DEFENDANT’S MOTION 
FOR ADDITIONAL TIME TO CONDUCT VOIR DIRE

	The right to be represented by counsel, guaranteed by Article I, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution, encompasses the right of counsel to effectively question members of the jury panel in order to intelligently exercise his peremptory challenges.  Mathis v. State, 576 S.W.2d 835, 836 (Tex. Crim. App. 1979).  Often times there is a natural tendency on the part of the trial court to place an arbitrary time restriction on voir dire.  McManus v. State, 591 S.W.2d 505 (Tex. Crim. App. 1979) (overruled on other grounds).  Cognizant of the propensity for these two principles to conflict, the Court of Criminal Appeals has set forth a criteria to be followed.
	In determining whether the trial court unreasonably restricted the time to conduct voir dire,  the Court has adopted a two-pronged analysis, focusing on whether: 1) the court prohibited proper questions, and 2) counsel sought to indefinitely prolong the voir dire.  De La Rosa v. State, 414 S.W.2d 668, 671 (Tex. Crim. App. 1967).  If the Court terminates  voir dire during the questioning of individual panelists, the courts also consider whether counsel was precluded from examining jurors who served on the jury.  Rogers v. State, 44 S.W.3d 244, 248 (citing Ratliff v. State, 690 S.W.2d 597, 599 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985)).
	The precise issue addressed by the Court in Ratliff was whether the trial court abused its discretion by limiting the defendant’s entire voir dire to one hour and thirty-five minutes.  Speaking for the majority of the Court, Judge W.C. Davis found that such a restriction was unreasonable:

 	Various and unpredictable considerations such as the complexity of the case or the makeup of the venire may prolong a voir dire examination.  Challenges for cause and discussions at the bench can contribute to a lengthy voir dire examination.  In the instant case appellant was . . . forced to expend additional time examining three or four jurors before the bench due to challenges for cause.  He also had to question some jurors more than others because of their responses to his questions that were directed at the whole venire.

Ratliff, 690 S.W.2d at 600 (attached hereto as Exhibit # 1).

	The Ratliff opinion demonstrates the Court's acute awareness of the dilemma confronting counsel who seeks to conduct a thorough examination of the veniremen.  To intelligently exercise peremptory challenges, counsel must elicit information from each individual juror and develop a rapport with that person (See, Bennett’s Psychological Methods of Jury Selection in the Typical Criminal Case  attached hereto as Exhibit # 2).  In even the simplest felony case, counsel's brief explanation of principles of law, followed by questions such as: 1) whether a juror can consider the full range of punishment; 2) whether a juror has ever been the complaining witness of a crime; 3) whether any family member or close friend of a juror is in law enforcement; 4) whether a juror can render a verdict based solely upon the evidence; 5) whether the juror has a bias or prejudice against the defendant; and, 6) general background information regarding education, prior employment, military service, membership in organizations, etc., could last well in excess of two hours.  When counsel prepares a proper or thorough voir dire, controversial issues are raised which necessitate bench conferences, objections and challenges for cause, all of which contribute to a prolonging of the jury selection process.  This is a small price to pay to assure the accused that he will receive a fair trial.  Case law substantiates this proposition.  Ratliff  is a reaffirmation of a string of cases which have reversed convictions due to an unreasonable limitation of voir dire examination.  In Thomas v. State, 658 S.W.2d 175 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983) (attached hereto as Exhibit #3), the Appellant's conviction was reversed because the time limitation placed upon the examination deprived counsel of the opportunity to ask relevant questions to individual jurors who were ultimately selected on the jury:
Because it is impossible to know beforehand how many prospective jurors may require significant examination for clarification of their points of view, no safe prediction of the time that may be required for voir dire can be made.  Thus, although hindsight may reveal, as it did in Whitaker [v. State, 653 S.W.2d 781 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983)] that limitation of voir dire was not reasonable and was not an abuse of discretion in light of how voir dire actually proceeded, the very unpredictability of what voir dire will reveal makes it impossible to say beforehand that any particular time period will not reveal itself to be unreasonable as the events of voir dire unfold.

Thomas, 658 S.W.2d at 176.  Finally, in Clark v. State, 608 S.W.2d 667 (Tex. Crim. App.1980), the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court abused its discretion by limiting voir dire to a mere thirty (30) minutes:
In view of the trial court's arbitrary time limitation on appellant's voir dire which consisted almost entirely of relevant, material and necessary questions, and in view of the trial court's refusal to allow appellant to ask a proper question about a proper area of inquiry, we concluded that the court erred in depriving appellant of a valuable right to intelligently exercise his peremptory challenges and thus abused its discretion.

Clark v. State, supra, at p. 70.
	In determining what constitutes a reasonable limitation on voir dire, it must be noted that the 
appellate courts have never relied on the range of punishment as the determining factor.  Instead, the courts have employed a more logical yardstick: did counsel use his or her time in an effective manner by asking proper and relevant questions?
	Applied sub judice, counsel does not seek a limitless voir dire examination.  Counsel has proposed proper and relevant questions which he desires to propound to the jury panel, some generally and some individually. The central issue in this case involves_______________________.  This area of inquiry will undoubtedly generate very strong opinions by members of the jury.  To effectively represent the accused and intelligently exercise his peremptory challenges, counsel will be required to delve into dialogue with many of the jurors.  This will necessitate extra time with those jurors who express an opinion on this hotly contested public issue.

	WHEREFORE, PREMISES CONSIDERED, counsel respectfully prays that this Honorable Court grant counsel's request that voir dire not be limited to [e.g., forty-five (45) minutes], but rather that counsel be given sufficient time to ask relevant and proper questions to each juror individually and for such other further relief as this Honorable Court deems necessary and just.

							Respectfully submitted,

							____________________________________
							Attorney for Defendant