During voir dire, lawyers ask questions to determine the personal feelings and experiences of potential jurors. They use this information to remove biased jurors. Questions may be general or specific to individuals, and may relate to the case or personal background. Jurors may be removed for cause based on their answers.
The questions asked during the voir dire are typically designed to determine the personal feelings and experiences of the jury. Questions may be asked of individual jurors, or an affirmative response may be required by show of hands. If a criminal case is being tried, questions may concern whether potential jurors were victims or what their personal feelings are about the crime involved. Civil cases often involve questions about personal occupations and experiences in connection with the case. Another question commonly asked during voir dire is whether jurors know or are familiar with the parties involved, their attorneys or the judge.
The purpose of the voir dire is for each side’s attorneys to have a good picture of the jury. Each party is generally allowed to remove a number of jurors from the pool, and they use the information learned from the voir dire to excuse people they feel may be biased. It is generally inadvisable to fake or invent a bias during this process to appear undesirable on both sides. Answering questions honestly can allow each side to remove true biased jurors.
Early in the voir dire process, each party’s counsel will typically have a period of time to ask questions. This usually starts with general questions asked of the entire pool. Initial questions are often very general in nature and may ask whether anyone in the pool has been a juror or has any legal knowledge. For a civil case, the entire pool is often asked if it knows what the difference is between a civil and criminal trial and what is meant by a preponderance of evidence.
After a general question is asked, individual jurors can be singled out to explain why they answered yes or no. A juror may be asked to elaborate on her personal experience with the justice system or what her feelings are about the different burden of proof required for a civil trial. Beyond questions that directly pertain to the ongoing trial, jurors may be asked questions about their backgrounds, occupations, and families. A survey of jurors is often distributed prior to the voir dire trial, and individual questions for particular jurors may relate to the information provided.
Some of the questions may seem intrusive, although they are typically designed to help attorneys determine potential sources of bias. After the interrogation process is complete, each side can typically request that a number of prospective jurors be fired from the pool. Answers given during the voir dire are cited when asking for someone to be dismissed for cause, so each juror challenged in this way may be asked to work out a previous answer.
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