"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
The section of The Florida Jury Selection blog dealing with juror pay has been updated thanks to the work of my brilliant law clerk, Kristin Bianculli. One of the most common concerns of potential jurors during voir dire is whether they will get paid while they are serving on a jury. State law only requires the government to pay jurors a very small amount for their service, and imposes no […]
April 2, 2008
The Supreme Court of the United States reversed a brutal murder conviction yesterday concluding that the prosecutor’s peremptory strike of a black college student appeared to be racially discriminatory. In Snyder v. Louisiana, 128 S. Ct. 1203 (2008) the Court held, in a 7 – 2 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, that the trial court committed clear error in rejecting the defendant’s Batson objection to the prosecution’s peremptory strike. Justices Thomas […]
March 20, 2008
This Wednesday’s New York Times reports that a federal district court judge has concluded that allowing American-born blacks on a Bronx jury but systematically excluding West Indian-born blacks from the jury is discriminatory. Federal Judge William H. Pauley III concluded that prospective black jurors cannot be excluded from jury service because of their national origin even though other blacks served on the jury. In other words, it is improper to exclude prospective jurors from a jury […]
March 5, 2008
Edgar Sylvester Whitby was prosecuted for permanently disfiguring his victim by throwing hot water on her. He was convicted of aggravated battery “by a clearly impartial jury” in an “otherwise error free” trial. But Edgar is a free man today, and the Supreme Court of Florida just turned down the State’s appeal of this case. State v. Whitby, 975 So. 2d 1124 (Fla. 2008). What happened? During jury selection the prosecutor sought to use […]
February 19, 2008
A $900,000 plaintiff’s verdict in a rear-end collision case was reinstated last Friday by the Fifth District Court of Appeal even though two jurors had failed to disclose in voir dire that they had been injured and received medical treatment as a result of prior car accidents. During jury selection, plaintiff’s counsel asked THREE times whether anyone had been injured in a car accident, and specifically asked the entire panel “Have any of […]
February 12, 2008
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