Leaders, contrarians, and independent thinkers can be pivotal in a verdict. These people have the potential to rally the rest of the group behind a unanimous decision, which is great for the plaintiff or the prosecutor. Attorneys will look for leadership positions in your history, and take note of how assertive you are during the questioning process.
This even includes your shoes. No pointy tips. The heels will be low, because open people want to be able to move around easily. The authors of a well-known book called Jury Works have categorized individuals into specific categories. These categories are leaders, followers, fillers, negotiators, and hold-outs. If an attorney can assess which particular category an individual is most likely to fall into, the attorney can try to pick favorable jurors to play the part of leaders and negotiators.
Trial lawyers should ask themselves, even if this particular juror leans toward my opponent's case, will that juror be a leader or will that juror play the part of a follower or a filler. One of the best ways to assess what role a prospective juror will play in the group dynamics is to analyze the individual's occupation.
It is common knowledge that the most important aspect of whether or not a prospective juror is deemed favorable or unfavorable is usually a result of his occupation. Trial lawyers for many years have been striking prospective jurors based on the duties of their occupations. What we do for eight hours of our work day tells a lot about our personality. By analyzing the actual duties and qualifications of a particular job, the trial lawyer can assess that prospective juror's participation and role in deciding what the verdict will be.
The leader is the most powerful member of the jury. This type of individual will play a very active role in helping other members of the jury decide what the verdict should be. Whereas it is impossible to assess each time who will play the part of the leader, one can assess leadership qualities by duties of their occupation, hobbies, participation in other organizations outside of work, and general philosophical beliefs.
For example, if an individual is in an occupation whereby he supervises numerous people, it can be surmised that he is used to giving orders and directing people on how they should act within their jobs. Almost all leaders possess good assertive skills and implement these assertive skills in every aspect of their daily life.
Individuals who organize fund raisers and take on outside tasks whereby they are the organizer or implementor of certain ideas will most likely possess strong leadership skills. Leaders can often be spotted on voir dire not only by the details of their occupation and outside activities, but also their nonverbal cues, such as the amount of talking they do on voir dire, and their interaction with other panel members.
The nonverbal cues of a person who possesses leadership skills will often be seen in the way they walk, the way their head is held while they walk, their stride and posture, and the way they seat themselves inside the courtroom. A leader's nonverbal cues have an air of confidence about them. Leaders often will strike up conversations with other members of the panel as if they were already politicking for the job of foreman. One way to assess whether or not an individual will participate as a leader on the jury is to ask him if he has sat or a jury before and if so, was he foreman.
The fact that he was foreman on a prior case does not automatically mean that he will once again be foreman, however, it does show that in the last trial he took a leadership position. Followers are those people who can easily be persuaded and merely follow the decisions of the other panel members.
There are basically two types of followers. There is the type of follower that merely wants to get finished with jury duty and has no real obligation to seriously participate in the jury deliberations. This type of juror is more concerned on how short the deliberations are rather than the actual process of the jury deliberations. This type of juror can usually be spotted because they complain at the onset of voir dire that they cannot participate in the jury system due to their busy schedules.
They are quick to complain about how much time is being lost due to their forced participation at the courthouse and merely do not know what correct answers to give in order to release themselves from the obligation of jury duty.
On one hand, if a prospective juror is too busy to participate in the jury process, it might be that his occupation is of a highly professional status and thus he could develop into the leader of the jury. Their personality does not demonstrate assertive skills whereby they exert themselves within a group.
Followers are not used to exerting themselves on their job or outside activities and thus usually align themselves with one of the stronger members of the jury. Followers will usually speak when they are spoken to and are passive in nature.
When looking for followers, the attorney should keep in mind the exact duties of the individual's occupation as well as what hobbies, organization, and outside activities they participate in. If their outside activities demonstrate that they merely follow orders from other people, this indicates that this prospective juror will be more likely to follow than to lead. The follower's nonverbal cues usually indicate a lack of assertiveness. Their walk and stance are such that there is a lack of confidence and assuredness in the way they carry themselves.
Sometimes followers will even look at the jury bench before they sit down in order to know exactly where they are sitting.
It is rare to see a follower strike up or instigate conversations with other panel members. Fillers are those individuals who are deemed even more passive than the followers. Fillers have no true desire to be on a jury and rarely participate in any of the deliberation process. Fillers usually lack self esteem and are in occupations which call for little or no intellectual ability.
Fillers take on no active participation in the voir dire process and give the impression that they are not involved in any part of the judicial process. Fillers will often appear like they are sleeping or disinterested during the voir dire process. Fillers can often be good on a jury where the attorney knows that there are several strong jurors who will be sympathetic to his case. Fillers, more likely than not, will not have understood the trial and the issues, but will almost always vote with the majority of the other jurors.
Negotiators are those individuals who enjoy easing the tension of others during the deliberation process. Negotiators like to feel they are responsible for maintaining group cohesiveness.
Negotiators often possess high verbal skills, whereby they can analyze and verbalize what is going on during the deliberation process. Negotiators dislike for one or more members of the jury to be unhappy and will try to get other jurors to talk about their feelings and their thoughts on the verdict.
It is thought that individuals who possess leadership qualities may also possess qualities of a negotiator. Look for details in an individual's occupation and vocational activities to indicate if they possess this personality trait. Negotiators are difficult to detect by their body language, but often their questions during voir dire will indicate their ability to work with other members of the jury.
These are strong individuals who, no matter what pressure is put on them by other group members, will never change their position. It is extremely difficult for a trial lawyer to foretell who will be a hold-out juror. The trial attorney should look for characteristics in the prospective juror's background which indicate a rebellious nature. Another way to determine whether or not a particular individual could become a hold-out is with pre-trial juror investigation whereby pictures of an individual's home, yard, fence, and other physical descriptions about the prospective juror's home indicate that they have an unusual nature about themselves.
Look for prospective jurors who maintain a barrier between them and the other members of the panel. The trial lawyer should also look for any other characteristics such as an unusual religion, occupation, or outside activities.
Trial lawyers should also assess whether or not it is a type of case whereby they want a hold-out juror. For example, in a very difficult case where it is not likely for the trial lawyer to win, the best result hoped for might be a hung jury.
If the trial lawyer can assess who might be a hold-out juror, the trial lawyer should reinforce the idea that it is okay for a juror to hold out and stay by his convictions. The trial lawyer should obtain a commitment from the "unusual" juror and have her promise both lawyers that he will not change his mind if he feels strongly about his position. Community surveys are questionnaires used to measure specific or general attitudes of the community. The survey will usually contain specific and general questions to assess attitude from individuals chosen at random in the community.
It may keep them from paying close attention to the testimony, but it also paints the attorney as rude and relying on gimmicks instead of facts to win the case. He would tear papers as loud as he could out of his pad.
It was extremely annoying. It was difficult to hear in that courtroom as it was and to have that monkey business going on was ridiculous. They were not very professional. It about killed us. It was like, enough already, we get that you are smart, move on. In a civil case, the jury will determine the degree of fault any given party holds, which will have a direct effect on the award amount you will receive. From the side of the plaintiff , jury selection is actually much more a process of dismissal than selection; that is, your attorney wants to weed out undesirable members.
The plaintiff always goes first, which means they get to set the tone for jury selection. Especially in an injury suit or wrongful death case, the goal is to get the jury to sympathize with the suffering of their client.
Very often, union employees make for good prosecution jurors as they are used to fighting injustice. People who are prone to look unfavorably on big corporations are good for cases like product liability and trucking accident cases.
The defense, on the other hand, wants the exact opposite. This, however, requires a careful balancing act. Since the defense goes second in jury selection, they need to adapt and adjust to the tactics established by the prosecution.
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