The Process of Getting on a Jury
1. Random Jury Selection: The compilation of lists from places such as the DMV, voter registration, and the phone book that states and counties keep for potential juror names. From these lists, people are randomly chosen for jury duty.
2. Notification: Ever prospective juror receives a notification by mail with a court-ordered jury summons as well as the date, time, and instructions of service. (however, people can reschedule when their summons is, you can be exempt for not being 18, a citizen, a resident of that county, mental disability, or you have been convicted of a disqualifying felony. Not showing up is not a good idea because you can be fined or arrested)
3. The Courthouse: Some courts have a call-in system for jurors where the jurors are required to call-in once or twice a day to see if they are needed. Other courts make you show up to the courthouse every day when it opens and you have to wait in a jury waiting area for your name to be called for a potential jury.
4. Initial Selection: A group of jurors out of those summoned to the courthouse will be asked to go to the courtroom where they will be introduced to whether it is a civil or criminal case as well as the lawyers and other people present in the courtroom. Then, the judge will hear juror's requests for dismissal (valid reasons would be economic hardship, family issues, jury service the previous year, and physical/ mental disability) looking for 12 jurors and about 3 alternates from the lot brought into the courtroom.
5. Voir Dire: From the jurors left, both the prosecution and the defense, respectively, get to ask jurors questions to help them determine whether they want the juror or not. The attorneys can get strike jurors for either Cause, meaning they believe something in the juror's background makes them bias, or using Peremptory Challenge, meaning they can dismiss a juror without explanation (although they have a limited number of these and they can't eliminate people based off gender or race).
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When becoming a juror, it seems like you don't need any previous knowledge of the law which is interesting because I think that the jurors should at least know the minimum of laws and rules of courtship previous to entering the court room or being selected.
ReplyDeleteWhen jury is selected by the lawyers and judges, they try to pick jurors who have no knowledge of what the case will be trialed for. If they did have a great amount of knowledge they would be bias to everything that would be present to and the lawyers wouldn't want that to happen to their clients if they wanted to be proved innocent/guilty.
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