This is the second article in my two-part series on Jury Duty.  In Jury Duty 101, I reviewed the history of the Jury System and important facts about before the date of Jury Service.  In this part, I will discuss what happens during your Jury Service.

It’s 9:00 a.m. and you have parked in the correct garage, walked to the Courthouse, passed through security and made it down to the basement of the Courthouse.  You enter the Jury Assembly Room and check in.  The Jury Commissioner provides orientation explaining jury selection procedures.  If time permits, you will be shown a jury orientation video.

Then, you wait until a judge needs a jury panel.  When that happens, you and about 40 other jurors are taken to a courtroom for Voir Dire — which is the Latin name for jury selection.  In the courtroom you are seated and are assigned numbers from 1 to 40.

During Voir Dire, the judge and/or the lawyers will ask you various questions to determine whether you can be fair and impartial jurors.  For example,  you will be asked whether you know the judge, lawyers, litigants or potential witnesses or whether there are other reasons why you might not be able to be fair and impartial.  Your job during Voir Dire is to be open and honest in answering the questions.  You will also be told the length of the trial and be given the opportunity to tell the judge and lawyers about any hardship you might have, like health, family or work, which would prevent you from serving.

After Voir Dire questioning is completed, the judge will excuse some jurors for hardship reasons.  Then, in private, the lawyers can argue that other jurors should be stricken from the panel “for cause,” meaning that they do not meet the criteria of being impartial.  For example, if one of the litigants or lawyers was a good friend of yours, you probably could not be impartial and, as such, should be stricken from the panel “for cause.”  Thereafter, each litigant is given a number of “peremptory strikes,” usually around 4, which allows that litigant to strike jurors from the panel who he or she believes will be unfavorable.  Once these strikes are used, the first jurors remaining become the jury.  There are normally 6 to 12 jurors, with 1 or 2 alternates.

The trial itself consists of several phases:  Opening Statements by the lawyers; the State’s witnesses and evidence (if a criminal case) or the Plaintiff’s witnesses and evidence (if a civil case); the Defense’s witnesses and evidence; Closing Arguments by the lawyers; Instruction of the Law by the Judge; and Jury Deliberations and Verdict.

As a juror, you will be instructed that, during the trial, you are not allowed to discuss the case with anyone, including fellow jurors and your family.  You also cannot have any contact with the lawyers, judges, litigants or witnesses.  If the trial runs for more than one day, you will go home each night, under strict instructions not to discuss the case with anyone or do any independent research or investigation into the facts of the case.  You are warned not to read, listen to, or watch any news coverage of the case.  In very rare cases, jurors are “sequestered” during a trial, which means that they are kept in a hotel and cut off from the outside world.

At the end of the trial, it is your job, as a juror, to decide the case.  This takes place in private deliberations in the Jury Room.  The jury must select a foreperson who usually leads deliberations and announces the verdict in Court.  However, the foreperson, like all other jurors, only has one vote.

During deliberations, the jury is asked to answer written questions on a Jury Verdict Form.  Your job is to answer the questions and explain your position to the other jurors.

In a criminal case, a unanimous verdict is required.  In civil cases, only a 5 out of 6 or 10 out of 12 majority is required.  If a verdict cannot be agreed upon, the judge must declare a mistrial and a new trial must take place in front of a new jury.

After you deliberate, you announce your decision in Court and your service is over.  After the trial, you can, but are not required to, discuss your decision with the lawyers, litigants or judge.

Tim is a graduate of Widener University School of Law (J.D.) and the Temple University Beasley School of Law (Master’s Degree in Trial Advocacy).  Tim focuses his practice in Personal Injury law, including car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle and pedestrian accidents, slip and falls, dangerous products/products liability cases, and medical malpractice.  Tim is a partner in the Chester County, PA, law firm of MacElree Harvey and has offices in Kennett Square and West Chester, PA, and Centreville, DE. 

Tim is the author of numerous publications on Personal Injury law and writes a Blog providing news and information on Personal Injury law at www.macelree.com/traynelaw and is a columnist for The Kennett Paper writing a column titled “Legal Lines.”  Tim has also published two books on Personal Injury law:  “A Lawyer’s Guide to Purchasing Car Insurance” and “A Lawyer’s Guide to Personal Injury Cases.”  In 2007, Tim was named by Main Line Today magazine as one of the area’s Top Personal Injury Litigators.  In addition, Tim is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum which recognizes the “Top Trial Lawyers in America,” with membership limited to attorneys who have won million dollar awards and settlements on behalf of their clients.

Tim can be reached by phone at 610-840-0124, by email at trayne@macelree.com or on his Blog at www.macelree.com/traynelaw.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under Jury Duty. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.