The Making of an Efficient Trial: The Jury Questionnaire

 The jury questionnaire is an underutilized tool that could help shorten the voir dire process and promote efficiency within the jury selection process. Especially during the pandemic, there is no reason to hail many jurors to court when some could be weeded out by the simple use of a questionnaire prior to voir dire. There are some very compelling reasons as to why a jury questionnaire should be used prior to an in-person jury selection process, such as: 

(1) it lessens the social desireability effect among jurors thus promoting more honest answers; 

(2) it allows the jurors to have more privacy on their own intimate views; 

(3) it can assist attorneys in approaching sensitive topics in a tactful way;

(4) it can protect jurors from contracting a deadly disease by using a prescreen; and 

(5) it curbs the possibility of discrimination in the jury selection process.

 

During the coronavirus pandemic, many courts have begun to use questionnaires as a way to vet jurors for potential covid-positive symptoms, mask-wearing habits, and overall health. The questionnaires saved jurors, who would not have qualified, say because they are positive for coronavirus, the trip to the courthouse and the resources they would have needed to accommodate missing a day in their life to attend jury duty. Further, it helps courts save time by questioning a juror on the backend and protects other jurors from contracting a potentially deadly virus. 

 

In sensitive cases, such as the prosecution of a sexual abuse case, questionnaires can assist with making the jurors comfortable sharing any prior experiences and current ideas about the topic without feeling judged by their peers. Imagine as an attorney, needing to ask questions about someone’s previous sexual experience, and as a juror, having to answer truthfully in front of the whole court. A questionnaire can easily solve the awkwardness and embarrassment of this situation. 

 

Not surprisingly, jurors are also on board with questionnaires over physically attending the jury selection process. When you give the jurors an option to respond to questions with a written response rather than oral response, it allows them to answer with more honesty, and curbs the social desireability effect. For attorneys, the accuracy of each juror’s opinions and ideologies is important to know prior to jury selection to ensure they know what each juror brings to the table. 

 

In a recent study by the Seventh Circuit American Jury Project, 77 percent of jurors said they would prefer to answer questions on a written questionnaire as opposed to answering all questions out loud. The most commonly cited reasons were “privacy,” “saves time and speeds up the process,” and “I don’t feel comfortable speaking in public.” 

 

I would argue that questionnaires should be crafted prior to voir dire by each attorney for the juries in order to save everyone some time and money. Similar to interrogatories, it would be convenient for attorneys to already have an idea of what jurors they want to work with and what they want to ask follow-up questions for prior to jury selection in court. In most jurisdictions, the judge cannot arbitrarily refuse jury questionnaires, so I think the reasons stated above should encourage each trial to utilize this tool to improve the efficiency of the pretrial stage.