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Abstract
The criminal justice process begins with arrest and ends in the courtroom with a trial. From the
moment a subject is arrested until they are tried their life is in the hands of trusted law
enforcement professionals. The process culminates with the right to be tried by a group of
impartial peers of the subject, in a reasonable amount of time, as our constitution intended. Are
the citizens these subjects face when the time for trial arrives impartial and fair? Do these
citizens understand the responsibility placed on them and the legal terms and concepts during the
court proceeding? Do victims of crime get the same and equal treatment in the court or is the
entire process subject to which side is more convincing? Judges are the gatekeepers of the court,
they allow evidence, and witness testimony, and ensure the rules of the court are upheld. Are
Judges given too much power and authority when it comes to verdicts and sentencing? Do
Judges act impartially and fairly or are they the same as anyone and have biases and emotional
investment in the cases presented to them which may sway their decision? These questions are
just a few of the many that come to mind about criminal court proceedings.
Keywords: Venire, Voir Dire, Pool, Peremptory Challenge, Challenge for Cause, Deliberation
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Jury Pool
The jury in a criminal trial comprises people from all walks of life. They represent the
defendant's peers and are members of that community. Most juries are comprised of 12 citizens
who are from the community where the trial takes place. The process starts with a jury
commissioner taking a group of citizens addresses who are from a specific area. These people
have to all be over the age of 18, speak English, and not hold a felony conviction, this group of
people is called the “Pool” (Costanzo & Krauss 2020 p. 220). They obtain this information
about residents through driver’s licenses, voter registration, and phone books in an area. Some
places allow government benefits registration to be used in jury selection as well. The process
for selecting jurors is more of a ruling-out process than a blind assignment. Many people are not
able to participate in being a member of a jury. If a selectee is a member of the constabulary,
doctor, lawyer, felon, or military service member they likely are ineligible or exempt. Many
other professions are preferable to participate in juries such as service industry, sales industry,
technical fields, and local government. The constitutional right that grants this right to trial by
jury is the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This amendment was added by our
forefathers who founded our country to protect citizens from unfair trials like “Witch Hunts.”
Jury Venire
Once the Jury Pool has been compiled they make a random selection of the names
provided and issue a court summons. The court summons the Jury candidates to a location,
usually a courthouse or government building at a prescribed date and time. The people who
attend the summons are what is referred to as the “Venire.” Venire is the Latin word that means
to see (Costanzo & Krauss 2020 p. 221). Some people who are summoned simply do not show
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up, which diminishes the pool however, this number isn’t a substantial amount. The Venire can
become as many as 100 people in serious crimes whereas in lesser crimes it’s about half that
number. From this number, some may be ruled out for other disqualifiers such as not being
mentally sufficient or unable to speak English.
Jury Voir Dire
Once the Venire is compiled the potential jurors are questioned by attorneys and the
judge of the trial. This process is called the Voir Dire which means in French to “see and tell”
(Costanzo & Krauss 2020 pg. 221). The questions asked to the Venire are specified by the
attorneys and sometimes attorney trial consultants. The questions asked are intended to
disqualify any juror who appears to have bias or would be unlikely to vote in a manner consistent
with the attorney’s point of view. The attorney will confer with the judge to remove an
unsuitable jury member in what is called a “challenge for cause;” if approved by the judge, the
juror is excused from the trial (Costanzo & Krauss 2020 p. 221). If an attorney’s challenge for
cause is not accepted by the Judge then the attorney has at their disposal a limited number of
times they may excuse a juror. The attorney may use a “peremptory challenge” without the
consent of a Judge and with no explanation (Costanzo & Krauss 2020 p. 221). Each attorney
gets a certain number of these types of challenges but the defense attorney typically has more
due to the risk of imprisonment for their client. There is an implication that the attorneys will
dismiss jurors they feel will not be sympathetic to their client’s perspective and essentially the
attorneys are attempting to gain a perceived upper hand against one another (Costanzo & Krauss
2020).
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Judges Decision Making in Trials
Jury decision-making during a trial can be broken into two types of processes. While
evidence is presented in court by law enforcement officials, investigators, subject matter experts,
subjects, victims, or witnesses the jury members take note of the different types of evidence and
how it applies to the crime or offense that is alleged. The members categorize the information in
a guilty vs innocent context on a virtual scale. Each piece of evidence or testimony presented
tips the scale in one direction or another. Some of the items of evidence can be so convincing
that the mental scale of the jury will be so far tipped that no other evidence presented can
balance or tip it in the opposite direction (Costanzo & Krauss 2020).
The other kind of method is for the jury to develop a scenario for the alleged offense. For
example, a woman accuses a man of rape, the woman’s story indicates she became intoxicated
and departed a bar late one evening while drinking with her friends. While she was in the bar
she was “hit on” by a man, she rejected the man’s advances while in the bar. The man watched
her leave, followed her outside, and forcibly raped her in the alley behind the bar. The counter
of this story would be the woman and man were flirtatious while in the bar and left together to
have sex in the alley behind the bar (Costanzo & Krauss 2020).
Noh (2023), conducted a study of political science reviews among conservatives and
correlated the deliberations among various jury verdicts. The criteria used were the verdict,
reasonable doubt threshold, and the evidence provided. Using this method is consistent with our
text, he suggested when the evidence presented is on even ground for guilt or innocence the
likelihood of a jury convicting an innocent person can be lessened if the burden of proof is
higher than a reasonable doubt. He utilized equations to represent the various factors and
variables involved in a trial such as the jury, innocent, guilty, verdict, and preference.
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Most people believe judges are fair and impartial when it comes to delivering sentences
or arriving at a verdict. Judges have a greater understanding of the law than the average citizen
and great trust is placed on them to be fair and impartial. A judge’s ability to discern between
pure logic and the emotional decision should be better than the average person, unfortunately,
this is not the case. Studies show that judges are influenced by their biases and emotions as
much as anyone else (Costanzo & Krauss 2020). It makes sense that a Judge would have the
same emotional considerations and biases to influence their decisions, they are only human after
all. In a majority of cases with repeat offenders, a judge will consider and rule according to the
advice of the defendant’s probation officer and not scrutinize the case. It may be beneficial for
the judge and defendant to have the judge write out their reasons for deliberating in any case.
Liu (2018), suggests that assessing the reasoning for the judge making the decision and putting
the rationale down on paper for anyone to read may have a positive effect on the judge ruling in
a non-biased attitude. Liu (2018), conducted three studies to test the validity of this method.
The first study evaluated the judge’s reaction to writing down the defendant's actions and
assessed the judge’s emotional reaction to the defendant. In his study, he noticed judges who
wrote down the reason for their decision in the case were less emotionally affected by the case
than judges who went straight to decision-making. Study number two provided evidence that
resulted in a deliberation period and resulted in a debiasing effect. The third study acted as a
control to the first study. In this study, the judge’s decision was more similar to opinion writing
by a judge to their legal assistants, which resulted in a more emotional and biased letter.
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The criminal justice system in the United States is not a perfect or simple process
by any means. Judges, Juries, and their respective responsibilities to the court and
members represented there-in pose several challenges. From the jury selection process of
establishing a pool of random people, then selecting viable qualified members, to being
further scrutinized by attorneys and judges to eventually becoming a “Jury” is a daunting
assembly, to say the least. Once the jury is assembled they now have to appear in court
for as long as the trial goes on, some trials can be lengthy. The pressure to be a juror
must be immense, they understand the fate of the accused is in their hands. The jurors
should remember, that Leviticus 19:15 says “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall
not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your
neighbor.” The jury then weighs the evidence provided to them during the trial or they
either believe one of two possible outcomes or “stories” with only information told to
them by the court. Then the lack of accountability Judges are held to only compounds
the lack of trust in our legal system. A judge’s ruling is final and appeals can only go so
far before they are exhausted. Sometimes new evidence revealed in appeals will
exonerate a wrongfully accused subject. This occurrence alone is proof of the problems
with our judicial system.
Conclusion
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References:
1. Costanzo, M., & Krauss, D. (2020).HForensic and Legal PsychologyH(4th ed.). Macmillan
Higher Education
2. Noh, H. (2023). Conservativeness in jury decision-making. Theory and Decision., 95(1), 151–
172. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11238-022-09915-7
3. Liu, Z. (2018). Does Reason Writing Reduce Decision Bias? Experimental Evidence from
Judges in China. The Journal of Legal Studies, 47(1), 83–118.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26501475
4. American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American
Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
5. Life Application Study Bible: New international version. (1997). Wheaton, IL: Tyndale
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