Post by sclcookie on May 31, 2006 2:34:09 GMT -5
Attorneys reveal why they eliminate potential jurors----UT employees, engineers, police officers and lawyers among those attorneys don't want on jury.
The most important part of any criminal trial, lawyers say, isn't the compelling testimony or the dramatic opening statements and closing arguments. Sometimes, they say, it's not even the facts of the case.
It's who sits in the jury box.
And depending on the case, engineers, police officers or even anyone who works for the University of Texas won't be there. Assembling a jury, a process that is far from scientific or methodical, often brings out the quirks of trial lawyers who try to evaluate which of the strangers on the panel would be least likely to rule in their favor, and then eliminate them.
"You win your case during jury selection," said Robert Phillips, a defense attorney who has been practicing for more than 20 years. "It's virtually over after the jury is picked."
It is during voir dire - the legal term for the jury selection process - that both sides first outline their arguments to prospective jurors and take their only chance to weed out people whose personal biases and opinions could lead to a conviction or an acquittal.
In a Travis County burglary case, for example, prosecutors struck the only two potential jurors who were black. The defendant, who was black, appealed his conviction, claiming, among other things, that prosecutors had been racially motivated when they dismissed those jurors.
But prosecutors justified striking the 2 because they worked for UT, according to court documents. At least 2 other potential jurors who were not black were dismissed because they worked for UT, according to the documents.
"It's been my experience that they are very anti-prosecution, that they tend to want to forgive people from any kind of criminal activity, that they are weak on finding people guilty, and even if they find them guilty, they tend to be very liberal on the issue of punishment," the unidentified prosecutor is quoted as saying of UT employees in the court opinion.
The Texas 6th Court of Appeals in Texarkana upheld the 2005 conviction.
But Edmund "Skip" Davis, the defense attorney in the case, said he doesn't agree, because lawyers tend to come up with "wacky" reasons for striking jurors. Striking someone just because they work for UT would eliminate a huge chunk of the potential jury pool in Travis County, he said.
"We have better logic in kindergartners than what the prosecutor used to support what appears to be entirely race-based elimination of black jurors," Davis said.
In any felony criminal case, each side may use 10 peremptory strikes to dismiss a potential juror for any reason other than race or gender. After that, jurors are struck "for cause," meaning there is some legal reason they could not hear the case, such as being unable to consider the full range of punishment.
Once the attorneys are content that they have struck everyone possible, the first 12 names remaining on the list become the jurors.
"As those 12 people are going up there, both sides are looking at each other going, 'Who are these people?' " Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said. "They tend to be the people who stuck out the least."
It varies from case to case, but prosecutors tend to strike other lawyers, who read too far into the legalities of a case, and engineers, who pay so much attention to detail that one missing fact could mean losing a conviction, Bradley said.
Defense attorneys said they also pick jurors according to the specifics of a case.
"I like tattooed truck drivers on DWI cases," Phillips said. "I don't want Mothers Against Drunk Driving or people who've had loved ones killed or injured by drunk drivers. "
Striking someone from a jury simply because of their profession isn't unheard of, said George Dix, a UT law professor who teaches Texas criminal procedure. Defense attorneys tend to strike people who work in law enforcement; prosecutors often try to get rid of people who work in "helping professions" such as teachers or psychologists.
He's never heard of a prosecutor striking someone because they worked for UT, though.
"Now, if you were talking about the members of the faculty of the school of social work," that might make sense, Dix said. "But we have a lot of rednecks working here, too."
(source: Austin American-Statesman)
The most important part of any criminal trial, lawyers say, isn't the compelling testimony or the dramatic opening statements and closing arguments. Sometimes, they say, it's not even the facts of the case.
It's who sits in the jury box.
And depending on the case, engineers, police officers or even anyone who works for the University of Texas won't be there. Assembling a jury, a process that is far from scientific or methodical, often brings out the quirks of trial lawyers who try to evaluate which of the strangers on the panel would be least likely to rule in their favor, and then eliminate them.
"You win your case during jury selection," said Robert Phillips, a defense attorney who has been practicing for more than 20 years. "It's virtually over after the jury is picked."
It is during voir dire - the legal term for the jury selection process - that both sides first outline their arguments to prospective jurors and take their only chance to weed out people whose personal biases and opinions could lead to a conviction or an acquittal.
In a Travis County burglary case, for example, prosecutors struck the only two potential jurors who were black. The defendant, who was black, appealed his conviction, claiming, among other things, that prosecutors had been racially motivated when they dismissed those jurors.
But prosecutors justified striking the 2 because they worked for UT, according to court documents. At least 2 other potential jurors who were not black were dismissed because they worked for UT, according to the documents.
"It's been my experience that they are very anti-prosecution, that they tend to want to forgive people from any kind of criminal activity, that they are weak on finding people guilty, and even if they find them guilty, they tend to be very liberal on the issue of punishment," the unidentified prosecutor is quoted as saying of UT employees in the court opinion.
The Texas 6th Court of Appeals in Texarkana upheld the 2005 conviction.
But Edmund "Skip" Davis, the defense attorney in the case, said he doesn't agree, because lawyers tend to come up with "wacky" reasons for striking jurors. Striking someone just because they work for UT would eliminate a huge chunk of the potential jury pool in Travis County, he said.
"We have better logic in kindergartners than what the prosecutor used to support what appears to be entirely race-based elimination of black jurors," Davis said.
In any felony criminal case, each side may use 10 peremptory strikes to dismiss a potential juror for any reason other than race or gender. After that, jurors are struck "for cause," meaning there is some legal reason they could not hear the case, such as being unable to consider the full range of punishment.
Once the attorneys are content that they have struck everyone possible, the first 12 names remaining on the list become the jurors.
"As those 12 people are going up there, both sides are looking at each other going, 'Who are these people?' " Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said. "They tend to be the people who stuck out the least."
It varies from case to case, but prosecutors tend to strike other lawyers, who read too far into the legalities of a case, and engineers, who pay so much attention to detail that one missing fact could mean losing a conviction, Bradley said.
Defense attorneys said they also pick jurors according to the specifics of a case.
"I like tattooed truck drivers on DWI cases," Phillips said. "I don't want Mothers Against Drunk Driving or people who've had loved ones killed or injured by drunk drivers. "
Striking someone from a jury simply because of their profession isn't unheard of, said George Dix, a UT law professor who teaches Texas criminal procedure. Defense attorneys tend to strike people who work in law enforcement; prosecutors often try to get rid of people who work in "helping professions" such as teachers or psychologists.
He's never heard of a prosecutor striking someone because they worked for UT, though.
"Now, if you were talking about the members of the faculty of the school of social work," that might make sense, Dix said. "But we have a lot of rednecks working here, too."
(source: Austin American-Statesman)