Voir dire is the process of questioning potential jurors to ensure they are impartial. As courts start to reopen after the pandemic, it’s important to remember how to protect the right to choose an impartial jury. This means raising any concerns about potential jurors during the trial, so that the court has a chance to fix any problems. If a party doesn’t do this, they might not be able to argue for a new trial later. In a trial, lawyers can object to potential jurors if they think the jurors can’t be fair. They have to be specific and ask the judge to remove the juror. If the judge doesn’t, the lawyer has to show it caused a problem. This is usually shown if the lawyer had to use up all their chances to remove jurors and still had a bad juror on the jury. The lawyer also has to object again before the jury is sworn in. The same rules apply if the lawyer wants to remove a juror using their peremptory challenge. If the lawyer thinks the other side is being unfair by removing jurors based on race or gender, they can object and ask the judge to look into it. But it’s not easy to prove. When lawyers pick jurors, they can’t discriminate against people based on their race or other protected characteristics. If a lawyer objects to a juror being picked, the court has to follow a three-step process to decide if the objection is valid. This process includes the lawyer explaining why they don’t want a particular juror, and the court deciding if the explanation is believable. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there may be changes to how jury selection happens, but the court will still have to follow the rules to make sure everyone’s rights are protected. Questionnaires are given to potential jurors in court to save time and help determine if they are fit for jury duty. But just because they fill out a questionnaire doesn’t mean lawyers can’t ask them more questions in person. Questionnaires can help narrow down the jury pool, but they can’t replace talking to jurors face to face. Courts have a backlog of cases because of the pandemic, so they might want to speed up the process of picking jurors. But they have to be careful not to limit the time too much, as that could hurt the rights of the people involved in the case. The way they pick jurors might change after the pandemic, but itâs still important for the lawyers to make sure the process is fair. If there are any problems with the jury selection, the lawyers have to tell the court right away.
Source: https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/the-preservation-of-error-during-voir-dire/
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