Charity v. Commonwealth

I respectfully dissent from Part II of the majority opinion and would hold that the trial court committed reversible error in refusing to allow counsel-conducted voir dire.

*268In 1981, the General Assembly amended Code § 8.01-358 to specifically grant attorneys the right to voir dire the venire. The Legislature’s action was in response to the Supreme Court of Virginia’s decision in Turner v. Commonwealth, 221 Va. 513, 521, 273 S.E.2d 36, 41 (1980), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 1011, 101 S.Ct. 2347, 68 L.Ed.2d 863 (1981), where the Court held that a defendant “has no constitutional right to…