Posts tagged voir dire

Just when I was on the precipice of not writing any further on the individual voir dire “debate“, I got sucked back in. So here is this half-baked post with some references to studies that you may consider the written equivalent of diarrhea and a few other thoughts that are slightly more well-formed.

First, having already disproven the notion that Connecticut is the only state in the country that conducts individual voir dire, I point you, discerning reader, to some studies that highlight the relative benefits of ISVD. In 1999, then Federal Judge Gregor Mize wrote a paper about an experiment he conducted wherein he questioned jurors individually, regardless of whether they’d self-identified any biases in the “introductory” phase of voir dire.  Here is his conclusion:

In view of these results, one cannot help but get a strong sense of the essential and revealing juror data that can be obtained by interviewing citizens who do not initially respond to open-court voir dire questions. The sometimes shocking, and always noteworthy, quality of the statements given  above, have caused me to require that I interview all silent venire members. I am convinced that even if individual questioning took up significant  amounts of time (which it has not for me), it would be well worth expending the effort in order to avoid juror UFO’s and the consequent danger of  mistrials caused by impaneling biased or disabled citizens.

In 2003, he followed it up with another paper: “Be cautious of the quiet ones.” Voir Dire, 10, pp. 1-4.

In Judge Mize’s research, in the criminal trials, 1 in 5 of the silent jurors offered a highly relevant comment in individual voir dire that was withheld during group voir dire; at least one, and up to four, silent jurors were then struck for cause in 27 of the 30 criminal trials. Silent jurors in criminal trials withheld being the defendant’s fiancé, being related to the police, being predisposed toward the police, being predisposed against the police, having self or someone close shot with a gun, having lied in group voir dire, and religious convictions conflicting with duties as a juror.

In the civil trials, 1 in 10 of the silent jurors disclosed a highly relevant comment in individual voir dire, which translates into one significant disclosure for every two civil jury trials. Silent jurors in civil trials withheld having been represented by an attorney in the case, being in an auto accident one month before being called in an auto accident case, overhearing others discussing frivolous lawsuits, predispositions against the plaintiff, and predispositions against the defendant.

In both civil and criminal trials, silent jurors withheld medical conditions/hardship, financial hardship, and limited English proficiency.

The most common excuses jurors gave for failing to answer questions in group voir dire were shyness, embarrassment, and a belief that their answers weren’t very important.

Judge Mize concluded that individual voir dire is an indispensable means of identifying juror bias.

In 2005, Dax Urbszat published another study entitled The challenge for cause: Does it reduce bias in the jury system? I am unable to locate a free copy of the paper on the interwebs, so you’ll have to make do with this excerpt and summary:

Urbszat (2005) recently conducted three studies examining the effectiveness of voir dire in identifying jurors with bias or prejudice in a case. The challenge for cause was found to be ineffective in identifying and rejecting biased jurors. In addition, when the jury pool remains inside the court during voir dire, jury pool members were less likely to admit being prejudiced, and less overall rejections occurred. Individual voir dire, conducted outside the presence of other jurors, increased admissions of prejudice.

In addition, since the original series of posts, I did informally ask several local attorneys who have experience both in the Federal system and in other States, and to a person they all affirmed that they would prefer individual voir dire over group. But that is neither here nor there since I am anonymous/pseudonymous and it is only anecdotal.

However, I may not even have written this post, were it not for oral argument today in Skilling v. United States (transcript) before SCOTUS. There are two issues before the Supreme Court, both interesting in very different ways. The first is of relevance here. Skilling claims that his “trial was unfair” (and I’m paraphrasing) because of the immense pre-trial publicity his case received that rendered it impossible to empanel an impartial jury, especially given the manner in which voir dire was conducted. For a case of this magnitude, an entire jury was selected in just 5 hours, with limited questioning by the judge and even more limited questioning by the attorneys. Their primary reliance was on a 14 page questionnaire that each potential juror had filled out well in advance of jury selection. It is especially important to note that in Skilling, the voir dire was individual voir dire (and this is the much vaunted Federal “quick pick” system).

In Skilling, 60 percent of the jury venire affirmatively acknowledged in the responses to questionnaires that they would be unable to set aside their deep-seated biases or doubted their ability to do so, or that they were angry about Enron’s collapse, an anger that was manifested in the vitriolic terms in which Skilling was referred to repeatedly both in the questionnaires and in the community more generally.

Here, in CT, a similar trial is underway in New Haven. I mentioned this in a previous post and it seems that this trial is the gunpowder that has ignited some calls for doing away with ISVD. Any such reliance on highly-publicized trials is misguided. As with the Skilling trial, there is an overwhelming percentage of people called to serve who immediately are disqualified due to the immense publicity in the press and the overwhelming emotions the case evokes. That, in of itself, takes up a lot of time. In the Hayes case in New Haven, it is my understanding that only 14 jurors have actually been questioned on their suitability, with 4 of them being selected to serve. The rest have either been excused for hardships or for cause.

And yet some would have us pick a jury in a capital case which evokes the strongest of emotions in a matter of hours. I wouldn’t do it if my life were on the line, would you?

And if you cannot answer the above question in the affirmative, then we must stop calling for a truncated process when the lives and freedom in question are of those who trust us with them.

In the vast amounts of time that I have to myself, dragging the wheel as an indentured servant of The Man, I have thought about ISVD. Perhaps it is my feeble mind that cannot escape the conclusion that ISVD is a tool to be cherished by the true believer in the fairness of the system. Perhaps it is the lack of dollar signs impeding my vision that does not let me see reason. Perhaps none has been given.