Article Review on the Selection of a Juror for a Trial

However, it isn't just the jurors' own personal prejudice that affects the way they vote. The prosecution of the boy led the jurors to believe that he was a guilty beyond all doubt. Also, the boy's representation was uninterested and uncaring. ‘I kept putting myself in the boy's place. I would have asked for another lawyer, I think. I mean, if I was on trial for my life I'd want my lawyer to tear the prosecution witnesses to shreds, or at least to try.' [Juror 8, page 14]

In the movie 12 Angry Men, the jurors are set in a hot jury room while they are trying to determine the verdict of a young man who is accused of committing a murder. The jurors all explain why they think the accused is guilty or not guilty. Throughout the movie they are debating back and forth and the reader begins to realize that even though the jurors should try to not let bias cloud their judgement, the majority of the jurors are blinded by bias. The viewer can also see that the jurors have their own distinguishable personalities. Their personalities intertwine with each other to demonstrate how the jury system is flawed, but that is what makes it work.

The jury represents the voice of the people, regardless, juries are ethnically un-diverse, consist heavily of certain age groups and members of certain socioeconomic statuses. To ensure better representativeness, two specific reforms can be implemented. First, making avoiding jury duty more difficult. The list of excuses in the Act can be reduced to achieve this. Additionally, the reforms must address the racial diversity in juries. According to Israel, parties are likely to attempt to exclude Indigenous and other ethnic minorities from in the selection process (1998). However, for the jury to represent the voice of the people it must be racially diverse, as Australia is a very multicultural country. As a result, a possible reform is making it more difficult for the parties to object to certain jurors. To rectify the issue of a lack of competence in juries, a solution is to expand the kinds of cases that a judge-only trials. At present, for example, complicated tax and fraud cases require a judge-only trial. A reform is to make it possible for further kinds of cases to be added. An alternative reform is to allow an independent lawyer to explain issues to the jury outside of court sessions, rather than relying on the judges’ instructions alone. The lawyer could identify any misunderstandings and correct them. Overall, it is necessary for reforms to be put in place to address

Juries exists in the criminal trial to listen to the case presented to them and, as a third, non-bias party, decide beyond reasonable doubt if the accused is guilty. For the use of a trial by juror to be effective, no bias should exists in the jurors judgments, the jurors should understand clearly their role and key legal terms, and the jury system should represent the communities standards and views whilst upholding the rights of the accused and society and remain cost and time effective.

Jury selection beings with a summons being sent out to all eligible adults. These summons, in Canada, are sent out randomly in order to obtain representativeness amongst the jury members (Friedland, 1990). While this seems to be the best way of obtaining impartial jurors, it sometimes ends up creating other problems through-out the trial. The Crown and defense try to avoid problems, such as bias, impartiality, pre-trial publicity, and polarization, during jury

“The Jury Selection Process” is a research paper that reviews the jury selection process in detail. First we will review the stages of the criminal trail and go in depth with the jury selection process. The paper will demonstrate why the jury selection process is necessary for the United States as well as its patrons. The paper will also provide a break down of advantages and disadvantages on the jury selection process. In addition to the information listed above, we will review some large profile court cases and its jury selection process. This will determine just how detailed and challenging the process can prove to

In today’s modern and culturally changing American society, the jury plays a crucial role in our democracy. Jury service allows defendants to exercise their right to a fair and impartial trial. However, in recent years there have been incidents where jurors have been excluded on the grounds of race, gender, religion and sexual orientation. These exclusions have a great impact on the fairness of a trial.

To begin with, Bias in the court room can be many things: Race, Religion, Sex, etc. For example, In the case: Rodriguez v. Colorado Miguel Angel Peña Rodriguez was charged with sexual assault. According to the article, "Racial bias in the jury room..." the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Miguel Angel Peña Rodriguez despite evidence that a juror said, "I think he did it because he's Mexican, and Mexican men take whatever they want." Mr. Rodriguez was accused of making sexual advances toward two teenage girls in the bathroom of a horse-racing track. The juror, H.C., was a former law enforcement officer who also said during deliberations that "where he used to patrol, nine times out of 10 Mexican men were guilty of being aggressive

‘Juror Bias’ exists, primarily with whites ruling that blacks are automatically guilty of the crimes they are accused of. In the particular source that I used for this point, it studied how a person's personality might cause them to view a person's guilt (or lack thereof). Specifically, the Southern white university students who participated in the study who scored high for 'authoritarianism' tended to believe the victim if their race was the opposite of the defendants (white or of color), versus if the defendant shared the same race as their accuser. Apparently, there was not a remarkable enough interaction between the races of the victim and the defendant in the results of the 'egalitarian' students for the results to be noted in this study.

The jurors were given a short story to read regarding vehicular manslaughter where the attractiveness and race of the defendant would vary. Than the mock juror was asked to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant, as well as the recommended sentence the participant would give. The study found that female jurors were harsher on unattractive defendants than they were on their attractive counterparts. Men, on the other hand, tended to find the unattractive female defendants as less guilty than the attractive female defendants. Therefore, the attractiveness of a defendant does play a large role in the juror’s decision

The Selection and Role of a Jury in a Criminal Trial This assignment focuses on how a jury is selected and its role in a

The concluding process of a jury selection to determine their eligibility as a juror candidates names, address and personal information of juror candidates are interviewed by lawyers or judge or by both, about their qualifications and closeness with the persons participation in the case. Defendants eyewitness and attorney approach towards details that might appear during the trial alternative elements that might reproduce on their enthusiasm and capacity to critic the case properly and justly in most cases interrogation are arrange into a group usually with direction of answer by raising your hand. Then they are follow up questions to the group. Candidates are often allowed to answer to delicate Voir dire questions either by a written or in

As far as prejudice goes, there is one juror that sticks out the most as being the most bigot-like, that is juror #10. Many of his comments throughout the movie demonstrate a feeling of white supremacy, and no empathy towards the young man on trial, being that he is African American. In one scene he proclaims, “Well don’t you know about them? They’re a danger here. These people are dangerous. They’re wild. Listen to me. Listen to me!” Following that he continues to make more stereotypical comments about blacks, calling them drunks and saying that human life does not mean as much to them. After so many of his racist comments, the other jurors tune him out and disregard his opinions. This affects the overall communication of the group because it angers the other members and distracts from the goal at hand which is to come to a decision. We also see prejudice get in the way of solving

Varied the physical attractiveness of a criminal defendant (attractive, unattractive, or no information) and the nature of the crime (attractiveness-related or attractiveness-unrelated) in a factorial design. After reading 1 of the case accounts, 120 undergraduates sentenced the defendant to a term of imprisonment. An interaction was predicted: When the crime was unrelated to attractiveness (burglary), Ss would assign more lenient sentences to the attractive defendant than to the unattractive defendant; when the offense was attractiveness-related (swindle), the attractive defendant would receive harsher treatment. Results confirm the predictions, thereby supporting a cognitive explanation for the relationship between the physical attractiveness

From the findings, it can be concluded that the results do support the hypothesis that mock jurors place a harsher sentence on the unattractive defendant in the manslaughter case. Whereas, it was not seen as significant on the unattractive defendant in the theft case, this finding is counterintuitive to the hypothesis however, one can speculate that being attractive may be more beneficial to those that are on trial for a serious crime. The implications here could be down to the serious consequences to the defendant’s life if they found guilty for manslaughter, when in actual fact it may not be entirely their fault. Whereas, with the theft case there was no doubt in the jurors mind that that individual was responsible for the