And Contestant Number 2 is.....: using a drop screen and individual voir dire to eliminate discrimination in jury selection

Introduction

Many of our class discussions surrounding the jury system and the problems it faces in everyday practice center around issues in jury selection. The topic I've elected for my paper focuses on attorney and consultant use of social media in jury selection, which grants parties the tools required to "construct" a favorable jury. As I read a post by my classmate, Shaq Grant, an interesting new prospective was brought to my attention. "Contrary to popular belief, the fundamental purpose of voir dire is not to select  appropriate jurors, but rather to eliminate potential jurors who have strong bias and prejudices that will be harmful to a party's case."

Prior to this assertion, I viewed voir dire from the incorrect perspective of building a "fair" cross section of the community from the group that arrived. However, voir dire is intended to be a random selection of community members who appear in a random order and ends as soon as a final number of jurors has been selected. From this perspective, eliminating a juror via a peremptory strike should be viewed as an obligation rather than a privilege.

Accordingly, voir dire and the use of strikes to eliminate juror bias should be reserved for those whose bias cannot result in a fair assessment of the facts rather than for those who might not be as favorable as others according to one party's counsel. A issue with the use of peremptory strikes  comes at the hands of Batson, which, as a prior post mentions, fails in its purpose of prohibiting the use of race as a basis for a peremptory strike and instead grants prosecutors and attorneys a tool to excuse a juror on that basis alone.

Individual Voir Dire 

For these reasons, certain states like Minnesota and Connecticut have implemented individual voir dire. While time-consuming, it allows the parties to weed out the actual biases of each juror in more accurate ways, and arrive at a less-bias, more fair final group. For more info on individual voir dire, see posts by Shaq (referenced above) and Hector Rios .

"Blind" Jury Selection

Another potential tool is "blind" jury selection. Suggestions have been made for double blind jury trials  wherein the jury cannot see the Defendant in order to eliminate any potential biases. All the same, blind jury selection would prohibit attorneys from engaging in discriminatory jury selection and make for more representative juries.

Conclusion

Jury discrimination on the basis of race, gender, socioeconomic status, age, disability and other physical characteristics in no way indicate a juror's assessment of their own biases. In fact, eliminating these members of society solely on the basis of these physical characteristics undermines the goal of a representative jury and results in juries "constructed" by the adverse parties rather than a representative cross section of the community.

Two potential solutions are drop screens during voir dire (and even trial) and individual voir dire, which should be considered more heavily in districts other than CT and MN.