We love nothing more than trying a case with the Christmas spirit hovering over the courthouse. Which is why we have tried a case in December probably twenty times in our career. And we would be remiss in not thanking our current judge for giving the jury Christmas cookies all week so far.
But we have a complaint.
Jurors are selected from the driver's license rolls we believe. Then they are randomly assigned to a panel. Why then does the judge have to inject himself/herself into the process by, once questioning is done, placing their names in some bucket and randomly drawing them so the lawyers don't know the affect of their selection or rejection of a juror?
Other than a Judge wanting to appear relevant, what is the reasoning behind this? Some of our REGJB judges do this, some do not.
Anyone care to explain why they think this was a problem that needed fixing?
16 comments:
It forces the decision to strike a particular juror to be based on that juror’s merit and not strategic considerations regarding who happens to be assigned the next juror number.
I believe the theory is that it is harder to discriminate based on race/gender/ethnicity with the names in the bucket. If a lawyer knows the order the jurors will be in, then you can know that if you strike this juror X, the next four jurors will be some particular demographic (all white females, or all old, etc.). If you don't want that demographic group some reason (almost surely based on sterotypes), the lawyer might be inclined to not strike juror X. And if you do want that demographic group, it makes the lawyer more likely to strike juror X to get to them. In other words, the lawyer has to make decisions on each individual juror without knowing if it will facilitate "getting to" other jurors or not. Of course, the deeper into the jury panel you go, the less difference this makes as there are fewer and fewer (and finally only one or two) names in the bucket.
To prevent bullshit strikes to get to people. It’s actually the most fair system of all.
Likely because they haven’t tried more than 5 jury trials in their career.
I had this nonsense pulled in a civil trial up in Broward a few months ago. It only produced confusion by both parties in trying to understand what was going on. Looks like it is some foolishness picked up at judge's college and everyone wants to try out the shiny new trick
Fucking Millennial/Gen Z idiots.
Lazy fucks who can't be bothered (or are incapable) of coming up with a strategy, therefore, everything they do not like must be sexist/racist/discriminatory.
When Trump wins again (G-d save us all), you have nobody to blame but yourselves for pushing the pendulum so far over that we are now receiving the backlash.
s/Gen X
Ralph died??
8:41 is spot on. It's about taking power away from the attorneys trying the case and their "strategic considerations." The problem is that this operates to take away an advantage from the stronger attorneys. In most--but certainly not all--cases in REG, that is the defense, so this is yet another rule that draws from the "fuck the Defendant" principle.
I'm not sure if I would say any individual juror has inherit "merit" versus another, but that's another conversation.
10:55 seems to want to remove peremptory strikes altogether, which is also another conversation. Under the current system, I don't understand why it's "bullshit" to use a strike on a juror who is less amenable to your theory of the case than the next juror up. Again, these are jurors who have no risen to the level of cause, so it's hard to understand why this strategic consideration is "bullshit"
10:29 has a point, but I think the better way to solve that problem is to do a more robust analysis under Batson and its progeny, focusing on the factors a court is supposed to balance re: whether the strike was genuine.
Fun blog topic to debate!
The random selection is definitely the most fair way to pick a jury. I think De la O started it, and many judges followed suit.
The whole Batson thing is bullshit frankly. I understand what they were trying to do but it is functionally meaningless. Anybody who can understand our clients who even has managed to avoid a felony conviction and is thus eligible who then talks honestly about how policing and the criminal justice system works in the communities 95 percent of criminal defendants are from can’t get on anyway. This is why you’re lucky to get one black juror. A system where we screen for basic eligibility (language, disabilities, etc) and otherwise just pick 6 random people without any questions about life experience or ideology or being “fair” would be more fair.
Credit where credit is due, I got the idea from Judge Firtel who used it occasionally. I liked it, researched it, and concluded that if I was going to use it in any trial, I should use it in all trials. The other commentators here have done an excellent job of explaining its advantages. I have written two orders explaining and defending random jury selection. I'm happy to share them with anyone who emails me. Also happy to debate it with anyone. It is neither illegal, unfair, or fattening. But if you convince me otherwise, I will stop using it.
p.s. I tried 50 cases to jury verdict.
Don’t want fair. Want to have the best jurors possible for my client, and that requires strategy to get to the ones I want. Not just jurors who are good enough.
50 trials … as an attorney or as a judge?
I was involved in a state court civil trial last year that resulted in a hung jury. We were all convinced that it would not have happened but for the random jury selection. No bueno.
As a long/time board- certified civil trial lawyer, I always felt that the most important parts of a trial were jury selection and opening statement.
Defense attorney here who actually tries cases. As young PD’s, Judge Faber did this with us. I’m a fan of the method de la O uses. Anyone crying about it ruining their strategy isn’t doing a thorough enough voir dire and adequately speaking to each member of the pool. Otherwise, we have to spend 3/4 our time speaking to the first half of a panel causing them sufficiently to make sure we get to some of the better jurors who are in the back half. Get with the times, Boomers!
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