Curing the Court's Error with a Peremptory Dooms Appeal for Cause

People v. Black, No. S206928 (Cal. Mar. 27, 2014)

Ok, it’s a criminal case. But it deals with jury selection, an issue common to both civil and criminal cases, and which is governed in both by the Code of Civil Procedure. A unanimous California Supreme Court holds that an erroneous denial of a challenge to a juror for cause is not reversible error, so long as no incompetent juror was actually empaneled. That’s the case even though the court’s error was cured when the defendant used a peremptory strike that he would have preferred to save for someone else.