A cause appeal is a request made by an attorney during jury selection to remove a prospective juror for a specific reason. Reasons can include relationships with those involved in the case, experiences or beliefs that may create bias, and beliefs about the law or sanctions. Jury selection aims to find a fair and suitable group of jurors for the trial.
A cause appeal is a request that an attorney can make during the jury select phase of a jury trial to have a prospective juror strike because he or she would not be suitable for trial. As the term implies, in a cause appeal, the attorney must provide a reason to remove a juror from a trial. Lawyers can also use a limited number of walkouts, where they can remove jurors without having to give a reason.
Jury trials are designed to introduce fairness into the justice system. In the jury selection stage, a large pool of prospective jurors is gathered, and they are polled in batches to find a suitable set of people to participate in the trial. Interrogation, known as voir dire, is used to remove people who may be biased, who would find it difficult to sit on the case, or who, for other reasons, may not be a good fit for the case.
A compelling reason for a just cause arraignment is a relationship with someone involved in the case, including one of the attorneys, the defendant, the judge, a plaintiff, or a victim. This can include blood relations as well as personal or professional ones; a judge’s spouse, for example, could not serve on the jury, and a landlord could not serve on the jury in a trial involving a tenant. Relationships with those involved in the case are believed to create bias.
A cause challenge may also be related to experiences or beliefs on the part of the juror that may make it difficult to hear a case fairly. For example, someone who has lost a loved one to a drunk driver cannot participate in a lawsuit involving drink driving. Likewise, people with prejudicial beliefs would be poor picks for a jury. Lawyers can also hit people who know about a case, even if they are not directly involved in it, as well as jurors who have been involved in a civil trial related to the same case, or who served on a jury in a previous trial which was later canceled following an appeal.
The belief that a law is unfair or that a sanction is not appropriate is also grounds for a just cause appeal. In countries that use the death penalty, people who believe the death penalty is wrong are eliminated by juries dealing with capital cases.
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