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Voir dire questioning is a process for eliciting, within legally mandated boundaries, information relevant to prospective jurors’ qualifications for service. The law allows lawyers to question each prospective juror about his or her qualifications for service on a particular trial. The best attorneys are able to fashion an inquiry that is most likely to reveal a potential juror’s bias or inability to meet the obligations of judging the evidence and applying the law. The importance of the voir dire in criminal trials has turned it into a virtual battleground between judge and lawyer. If counsel asks questions that are repetitive, improper in form, or that encourage the prospective juror to form an opinion in the case, counsel will provoke adverse rulings from the judge. A tug of war develops, which breeds distrust, so that the judge may preclude even proper questions. The trial is likely, but unnecessarily, off on the wrong foot. This unfortunate state of affairs can be resolved, however, by re-examining the purpose of voir dire.
The voir dire discloses prospective jurors who are unable to fulfill the obligations of a juror or who are not capable of undertaking an impartial evaluation of the evidence and application of the relevant legal rules. Such disclosure leads to excusal of jurors for cause. It also enables counsel to exercise peremptory challenges appropriately. Voir dire provides a means of discovering actual or implied bias and a firmer basis [than stereotyping] upon which the parties may exercise their peremptory challenges intelligently.
1. Thus, the voir dire is the mechanism for carrying out the due process mandate that the fact-finder be fair and impartial.
2. The voir dire is to be used to learn about a prospective juror’s qualifications; it is not to be used as a mini-trial, an opportunity to persuade jurors to a litigant’s point of view, or as a dress rehearsal of the trial.
3. The judge’s traditional role in the voir dire is to set out the relevant legal principles. Further, to prevent irrelevant and repetitious questioning by attorneys, the judge has the discretion to preclude, or limit the scope of, counsel’s questioning, and the authority to conduct the questioning of the prospective jurors. Indeed, the court may ask each prospective juror to complete a questionnaire covering any “fact relevant to his or her service on the jury.”
4. After identifying the attorneys and the parties, and outlining the nature of the case, the court is required to “put to the members of the panel . . . questions affecting their qualifications to serve as jurors in the action.” These questions are asked of the prospective jurors as a group or individually. The court may have the jurors answer by raising their hands or speaking individually. The court may interrupt during attorneys’ examination to prevent repetitious and irrelevant questions. When the lawyers have completed their questioning, the court may ask such further questions as it deems proper regarding prospective jurors’ qualifications. The trial judge sets the boundaries of the inquiry. Noting that this is “an area of the law which does not lend itself to the formulation of precise standards,” the Court of Appeals has said that the trial judge “has broad discretion to control and restrict the scope of the voir dire examination.”
5. Areas for Examination. Both the nature of the case and the characteristics of the jurors determine what information is relevant to selection of a jury and therefore what questions are permissible. In all cases, each prospective juror must be qualified to serve and legally suitable for service. Each juror must be fair and unbiased, able to render an impartial verdict in accord with the evidence and applicable law, and capable of performing the functions required of a juror. Some applicable areas include: Statutory requirements of jury service, statutory requirements to sit on a particular case, professional expertise, personal information about the juror, ability to fulfill the duties of a juror, view about issues related to the case, and race and ethnic issues.
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