a public defender

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It has become that, hasn’t it? Certainly feels like this week’s posts have somehow focused only on jury selection. Well, you’ll be glad to know that “jury selection week” ends on a good, informative note. Mark Bennett has this terrific post and (as noted in the comments here) this equally informative follow-up post on good and bad voire dire practices and jury selection. He starts:

I think a lawyer should never pick a jury alone (it takes at least four eyes to keep track of jurors’ body language). I also like to watch other lawyers’ voir dire efforts. So whenever I get a chance I help out other defense lawyers when they pick juries. Even when it’s bad, I learn something. Here’s a rule of thumb to tell a good voir dire from a bad voir dire: in a bad voir dire, the lawyer is doing 90% of the talking; in a good voir dire, the potential jurors are doing 90% of the talking.

I think of voir dire as a first date with 24 or 60 people. You want to learn enough about them that you can decide which of them you would like to see again (on your jury), and you want those who you’re going to keep to like you and your case. If you pick right and charm them now, it’ll be easy to seal the deal later.

He goes into detail about bad voire dire practices, so if you pick juries, go give it a read. TMYK…

Extra: Here’s a funny cartoon about jury selection.