Essay - Jury Selection an Analysis of Jury Selection Strategies and Rationale...

Jury Selection

An Analysis of Jury Selection Strategies and Rationale in the American Courtroom Today

***** least a few of ***** Founding Fathers must have winked when they approved the Sixth Amendment, guaranteeing trial before an 'impartial jury.' The United States has never provided trials by jurors entirely devoid of bias or inclination. It could not even if it tried. And ***** Founding Fathers ***** have been acutely aware ***** this fact, having based the U.S. Constitution on expectations of hum***** fallibility and partisanship. -- D*****it F. Kressel and Neil J. Kressel, 2002

Introduction

The epigraph above is illustrative of one of the most interesting - and challenging ***** aspects of the American adversarial jur*****prudence system, which is the unpredictable nature of juries. H*****tory ***** shown time and again that no matter how compelling ***** convincing the evidence to the contrary, jurors can arrive at decisions ***** are inexplicable from an outsider's perspective, and experienced attorneys will likely be reluctant to try to second-guess what decision any given jury may return on any ***** case. Furthermore, the c*****sequences of such ***** can be l*****e-changing in al***** any setting or even life-ending in capit***** cases, and there is little room for error. Un*****tunately, though, people - ***** jurors - ***** just human and are prone to the same kinds of mistakes that all people make, ***** it is ***** responsibil*****y of the courts and their *****ficers to ensure that those who serve on juries possess the requisite qualificati*****s and are other suited ***** serve without prejudice. To determine what these qualifications are and how they are discerned during the jury selection process, this paper provides an overview of voir dire, precedential case law and a discussion of how *****se play out in real*****world settings today. A summary of the research and salient findings are ***** in the conclusion.

***** and Discussion

Background and Overview.

***** Americans may ***** to avoid jury duty as an onerous t*****k ***** requires ********** ***** miss work and family obligations, but the system is an essential component of ***** legal institution ***** requires the active participation ***** eligible citizens to decide the civil and criminal ***** that are brought to trial. Although ***** composition varies from jur*****diction to jurisdiction, by and large, juries recruit their members at random from the wide available population, and provide *****m with the ability to reach a decision ***** ***** vote in secrecy, and to present their verdict with***** providing any reasons **********. According to one observer, "Throughout its his*****ry, it has perhaps been both overpraised as a charter of liberty and overcriticized as a reli*****nce on incompetent amateurs in the administration of justice" (Klaven & Zeisel, 2006, p. 3). The process by which juries in American courts are selected is known as ***** dire. According to Black's Law Dictionary (1990), voir dire literally means "To speak the truth" (p. 1575). ***** phr*****e is used today to describe the preliminary examination which courts and *****yers made ***** prospective jurors ***** determine