"Never forget, almost every case has been won or lost when the jury is sworn." - Clarence Darrow 1936
"The change of a single juror in the composition of the jury could change the result." - Ter Keurst v. Miami Elevator Co., 486 So. 2d 547 (Fla. 1986), Justice Adkins, Dissenting
"Trial by jury is the best of all safeguards for the person and property of every individual." - Thomas Jefferson
Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhorkar Tsarnaev’s death sentence due to a trial judge not properly vetting a juror for possible bias. Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death in 2015 for his role in the horrific April 2015 Boston Marathon bombing which killed 3 people and injured more than 260 other people. In a 224 page opinion, the […]
August 3, 2020
As attorneys, we go to great lengths to select the jury who will decide our client’s fate at trial – yet today, there is a looming, additional silent juror banging at the door attempting to, and sometimes succeeding in, getting in – Google and the age of information overload. Earlier this month a Broward County criminal defendant requested a new trial based on juror misconduct. Defendant, Dr. Scott Strolla, was […]
October 15, 2019
Last week the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed an aggravated battery conviction based on a trial court improperly limiting the amount of time an attorney could ask questions to a prospective jury panel. Strachan v. State, ___ So. 3d ___ (Fla. 4th DCA 2019). In Strachan, the trial court entered a scheduling order before trial limiting voir dire to forty-five minutes per side, noting if either side needed additional […]
October 7, 2019
A trial court’s decision was reversed early in June for failing to strike a juror based on her nonverbal behavior. The Fifth District Court of Appeal held that a juror being “not particularly engaged” during jury selection was a legally sufficient race-neutral reason to strike the juror. Travelers Home and Marine Ins. Co., v. Gallo, 2018 WL 2448799 (Fla. 5th DCA, June 1, 2018). At trial, after concluding voir dire, […]
July 3, 2018
Earlier this week, in a medical malpractice wrongful death trial in Gainesville, the defense lawyers did a very thorough job questioning the prospective jurors during voir dire. Below are a few of the questions they used to evaluate the panel from the defense perspective. Defendant, Mrs. X, represents the hospital. She has a right to be in the courtroom. She has a right to defend herself. She says she didn’t […]
November 10, 2017
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