Jury Selection and Trial Procedure
The website http://jurygeek.blogspot.com has jurors blogging about “what really happens on juries.”
Look at these sites(see attached) and think about whether knowing what these bloggers are thinking would have been helpful in voir dire and/or during trial presentation.
During the National Jury Summit in 2001, most attendees surveyed (many of whom were judges) indicated that they had reported for jury duty, a few even serving through to a verdict.
Here are some more “excuses” people gave to explain why they couldn’t serve as jurors (these responses were taken from the above mentioned website): “We had one juror who said that they just could not serve because they could not go that long without a cigarette! A doctor submitted a note on his behalf. We had a caretaker of a cemetery who called and said he couldn’t serve because people just keep dying and he couldn’t get away.”
Look for similarities and differences across different juror questionaire (https://jurylaw.typepad.com/deliberations/sample_juror_questionnair.html)
During the voir dire process in capital trials, prospective jurors are asked about their views regarding the death penalty. Those who would automatically vote for the death penalty or those who could not vote for the death penalty are excused. Is this an acceptable procedure?