Jury selection in the United States

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Jury selection in the United States is the choosing of members of

trial by jury in the United States
.

Voir dire

During voir dire, potential jurors are questioned by attorneys and the judge. It has been argued that voir dire is often ineffective at detecting juror bias.[1] Research shows that biographic information in minimal voir dire is not useful for identifying juror bias or predicting verdicts, while attitudinal questions in expanded voir dire can root out bias and predict case outcomes.[2] Extended voir dire in major controlled substance trials may increase accuracy in predicting individual verdicts from 50% to 78%.[3]

Federal

In the federal system, jury selection is governed by the

capital cases, each side gets twenty peremptory strikes. In other felony cases, the defendant gets ten peremptory strikes and the government gets six. In misdemeanor cases, each side has three peremptory strikes.[4]

State

Each

U.S. Constitution
.

Jury selection process

A typical jury selection process in the U.S.:[5]

  1. The county creates a list of potential jurors from records. Exactly which records are used vary by state, but they may include state tax filers, motor vehicle registrants, voter lists, or even utility lists.
  2. The county selects randomly from the list of potential jurors and sends those people a juror summons to appear at a particular court on a particular date.
  3. Potential jurors arrive at the courthouse and are placed in a juror pool.
  4. When a particular court needs jurors, a set of people from the juror pool are drawn randomly and placed on a panel that is assigned to that court.
  5. After instruction from the judge, panelists are chosen at random and placed on the jury.
  6. The judge and attorneys ask the jurors questions to look for potential bias or prejudice (for example, knowledge of one of the subjects of the trial). Such jurors will be dismissed and replaced by a new member from the panel. (If necessary, additional panelists may be recruited from the juror pool.)
  7. When a complete jury is formed, possibly with alternate jurors, the remaining panelists are dismissed and the trial begins.

Constitution

Further information: United States constitutional criminal procedure

Impartiality Clause

Main article: Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution § Impartial jury

Vicinage Clause

Main article: Vicinage Clause

Federal criminal petit juries are required to be composed of residents of the state and federal judicial district wherein the crime was committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law.

Faults within the jury selection process

Bias

Further information: Racial discrimination in jury selection and Women in United States juries

The juror selection process holds the potential for discrimination in the selection of jurors and the final composition of juries.

courts-martial is subject to too much control by commanders, who can pick jurors who will be most likely to convict and hand down heavy penalties.[8]

racial bias in jury selection has been complicated by the question of whose rights are implicated; the potential juror's, or the defendant's.[10] A Michigan Law Review article, published in 1978, asserted that young people, during that period, were under-represented on the nation's jury rolls.[11]

A 2012 study from

Quarterly Journal of Economics investigated the effect of jury selection and racial composition on trial outcomes. The study found that black defendants (81%) are significantly more likely than whites (66%) to be convicted when there are no potential black jurors in the pool. Even with only one black member of the jury pool, conviction rates are almost identical (71% for blacks and 73% for whites). While 64% of cases had at least one black potential juror in the pool, only 28% of all trials had one or more black members on the seated jury. "Whenever attorneys use peremptory challenges to strike black members of the pool ... they forgo the possibility of excluding another potential juror with a similar ex ante probability of convicting," and the composition of the jury indirectly reflects that of the juror pool.[12][13]

A 2018 study published in the University of Illinois Law Review found that prosecutors and judges tend to remove more African-Americans while defense attorneys remove more whites.[14][15]

As of 2014, the

9th Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a peremptory challenge based on perceived sexual orientation is unconstitutional.[16]

Lack of juror privacy

Jurors have very little

US Court of Appeals in Chin v. Trustees of Boston University (2019), the jurors' names and home addresses can only be kept confidential after a verdict is announced if the judge makes a particularized finding of privacy concerns, such as a credible threat of violence against the jurors.[20] A general concern about harassment in person or through social media is not enough to protect jurors' privacy.[20]

Potential jurors are as sensitive to privacy concerns in court as they are in their everyday lives, and they do not always disclose

political contributions they have made; and past criminal convictions.[18] Although these questions invade the potential jurors' privacy beyond what could be asked in court of most accused people and witnesses, potential jurors are generally obligated to answer such questions publicly and truthfully in the hope that this information will help the litigants identify prejudice among jurors.[18] Brandborg v. Lucas (1995) held that jurors can be punished for contempt of court if they do not answer questions the court has determined are "reasonably calculated to discover an actual and likely source of prejudice, rather than pursue a speculative will-o-the-wisp", but not for questions that the court has not determined are potentially relevant to the case at hand.[21][22]

Although it is technically possible for a potential juror to start legal proceedings about a question asked during voir dire, it is an impractical response, and the main defenses against intrusive questioning are the discretion of the judges, who typically allow any questions the lawyers want to ask, and the fear of the lawyers that a chosen juror may become biased against their side of the case because of their lack of respect for potential jurors during voir dire.[18] Additionally, Sinclair v. United States (1929) held that defendants may not hire private detectives to surveil jurors during a trial.[21]

References

  1. ^ Hans, Valerie P.; Jehle, Alayna (2003), Avoid Bald Men and People with Green Socks - Other Ways to Improve the Voir Dire Process in Jury Selection, vol. 78, Chi.-Kent L. Rev., p. 1179
  2. ^ Kellermann, Kathy. "How helpful is expanded voir dire in civil cases?". Online Jury Research Update. Retrieved August 10, 2023.
  3. ^ Moran, Gary; Cutler, Brian L.; Loftus, Elizabeth F. (Jul–Sep 1990), Jury selection in major controlled substance trials: The need for extended voir dire, vol. 3, Forensic Reports, pp. 331–348
  4. ^ Rule 24, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure
  5. ^ "About the Trial Process". Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  6. JSTOR 3053202
  7. ^ Pizzi, William T.; Hoffman, Morris B. (2001), Jury Selection Errors on Appeal, vol. 38, Am. Crim. L. Rev., p. 1391
  8. ^ Smallbridge, Gary C. (1977), Military Jury Selection Reform Movement, The, vol. 19, A.F. L. Rev., p. 343
  9. ^ Cavise, Leonard L. (1999), Batson Doctrine: The Supreme Court's Utter Failure to Meet the Challenge of Discrimination in Jury Selection, The, vol. 1999, Wis. L. Rev. 501
  10. ^ Underwood, Barbara D. (1992), Ending Race Discrimination in Jury Selection: Whose Right Is It Anyway, vol. 92, Colum. L. Rev., p. 725
  11. JSTOR 1287973
  12. ^ "The Impact of Jury Race in Criminal Trials". JournalistsResource.org, retrieved May 15, 2012
  13. doi:10.1093/qje/qjs014
    .
  14. ^ Ronald Wright. "Yes, Jury Selection Is as Racist as You Think. Now We Have Proof". The New York Times - Opinion section. Retrieved December 4, 2018.
  15. ^ The Jury Sunshine Project: Jury Selection Data as a Political Issue SSRN, 2018
  16. ^ Levine, Dan (June 24, 2013). "UPDATE 1-U.S. court refuses to undo gay rights ruling in pharma case". Reuters. Retrieved July 4, 2014.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g Hannaford P. L. (2001.) "Making the Case for Juror Privacy: A New Framework for Court Policies and Procedures", State Justice Institute.
  18. ^ a b c d e f Wilson, Melanie (2012-01-01). "Juror Privacy in the Sixth Amendment Balance". Utah Law Review.
  19. ^ Thanawala, Sudhin (16 July 2016). "Judge reignites debate over researching jurors online". Associated Press News.
  20. ^ a b Christiansen, Erik A. (29 August 2019). "Jurors' Names and Addresses Must Be Disclosed after Trial". American Bar Association. Retrieved 2023-06-11.
  21. ^ a b "Brandborg v. Lucas, 891 F. Supp. 352 (E.D. Tex. 1995)". Justia Law. Retrieved 2023-06-12.
  22. ISBN 978-1-63284-046-2
    .
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