Some notes on jury selection

Some notes on jury selection

I was going through some notes on jury selection and found the following. They aren’t very profound, but I thought perhaps there is something here that might help you in jury selection. The first note deals with the identification of jurors whose attitude is deference to authority. We call them “authoritarians” and they are dangerous jurors, especially when you are suing an authority figure or entity like the police or a doctor. Here are my notes about this class of people on your jury:AUTHORITARIANS: (People who are deferential to authority)(1) THE “FIVE R’S” OF authoritarian: (1) RIGID (2) RACIST (3) RIGHTEOUS (4) REPUBLICAN AND (5)REPRESSED(2) THEY SEE JURY DUTY AS THEIR MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ARE UNABLE TO CONCEIVE OFTHEMSELVES AS ANYTHING BUT FAIR(3) THEY ARE DOGMATIC, CONSERVATIVE AND PUNITIVE(4) THEY ARE STRONG SUPPORTERS OF THE STATUS QUO(5) THEY THINK IN TERMS OF “SHOULD AND SHOULD NOT” RATHER THEN THE REASONS BEHINDHUMAN BEHAVIOR(6) THE ARE EXCESSIVE DEFERENTIAL, USUALLY USING “YES SIR” AND “NO SIR”(7) THEY ANSWER QUICKLY IN ABSOLUTE TERMS IN MILITARY FASHION TO DIFFICULT ORCOMPLEX QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANY QUESTION ABOUT OTHER POSSIBILITIESThefollowing is a sheet to track jury selection in avenue where the jurors are questioned as a group rather then one by one. The group selection process isoften called a “struck jury” procedure.In most jurisdictions the jurors have a jury number, but they also are seated in a numerical order so it’s important to track both the jurynumber as well as the seating number. “Keep”is where you, would write your impression as to whether they shouldbe on your jury. Therating might be as simple as “yes” “No” “?” or it could be a number rating of 1 to 5with #1being themost favorable and #5 the worst.The area for “comments” would a brief note such as “leader””follower”etc. Thearea for “court questions” would bewhere you writea note about any significant fact the court has obtainedduring the judge’s questioning of the panel. The formhasbeen made brief and simple because you don’t want to do a lot of writing while you talk to jurors. In fact,the best procedure is you do no writing and let others fill in these sheets for you.STRUCK JURY SUMMARY SHEET44 (Keep?) (_No__)_Name____________) (___Comments____________________________)___Court Ques?______________

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