Criminal Lawyers
Q.My first-ever stint at jury duty. I was involved in two jury selections and was lucky? enough not to be selected for either However, I found some parts very curious and would love some explanation if we have any criminal lawyers who hang around this VR water cooler. Not sure how my experience will differ from that in the US, so will give probably way too much detail... In the first trial, the potential jurors were called in groups of 10. Each person, in turn, was asked to look at the accused and the accused look at the juror. Each counsel (defence and prosecution) had the chance to "challenge" or reject any juror without having to give any reason. I found out later that each side has 12 summary rejections, after that, they have to accept jurors unless they have a cause to challenge them. No questions were asked, the only info that counsel had was our names and occupations. It took 36 potential jurors to go through this process to obtain a jury of 12 (some members of the panel asked for deferments or to be excused on the basis of hardship). In the second trial, first, each potential juror was sworn in for their testimony and required to answer one question posed by the defines attorney (identical question asked of each potential juror). Based on that answer, two other chosen jurors judged if the potential juror would be objective based on this one question and answer. If not, they were withdrawn from this particular jury selection. If they passed this "test", then each counsel had the chance for summary challenge. In this case, it took 54 potential jurors to get a jury of 12 - a process that took over 2 hours!! Can someone please explain, from the attorney's perspective, how jury selection works???
A.I am a criminal lawyer, a Crown Prosecutor to be exact. Your description of your experience tell me you are from Canada. In the U.S. it is routine for both counsel to extensively examine each potential juror so that the selection process can take day. In Canada, it is actually quite rare for counsel to be allowed to question jurors at all. Your first session is the most typical. Each counsel is given the name and the profession of the potential juror. Since this is all the information they have, the criteria used to accept or reject candidates are often totally idiosyncratic. I will give you an example of how the reason might go from my own experience at picking juries. If I have a sexual assault case I might feel that women might be a good bet because they might sympathize with the victim; or I might feel that men are a good bet because they might feel disgust at such a cowardly act. If I have an assault at a bar, I might feel that working class men are a good bet because they go to the type of bar in question and would feel that they should keep these places safe. The point is that all the above is little better than rolling a dice. Recent case law has suggested that in certain cases it is proper to have the jurors questioned. The typical situation would be where race is an issue such as in cases involving altercation between white police and black people. There have been a number of high profile cases of this sort in Toronto in the last number of years.
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