Monthly Archives: November 2006

The Supreme Court has authorized the use of a revised preliminary jury instruction to be given by the Court to the jury before the start of voir dire. The revised instruction (FSJI 1.0) is much more verbose and will be less helpful in selecting a jury than the earlier version. It repeatedly uses the hackneyed phrase “fair and impartial” and eliminates the prior and better language of the earlier version requesting jurors to inform the Court and counsel of their “personal opinions” and “strong feelings.”

At the conclusion of Voir Dire, the Defendant wanted to strike four jurors for cause. The judge denied all the challenges. At least one of the jurors was questionable. On appeal, a new trial was ordered by the 4th DCA because “seating a single juror whose impartiality may reasonably be questioned is a structural error not subject to harmless error analysis.” In Dorsett v. State, 941 So2d 587 (4 DCA 2006). the Court noted that the […]