American Jury Voir Dire and the Ideal of Equal justice

Abstract

Two approaches to the minimizing of jury bias have gained attention in recent years. One attempt is to increase the representativeness of juries by developing jury lists that better reflect a cross-section of the community. The second leads to more extensive voir dire examination and the use of what has been called "scientific jury selection." This article focuses upon the second approach—extensive voir dire—and argues that gains in representativeness from expanded jury pools may be lost because citizens are needlessly dismissed from juries during voir dire. This is of particular concern since the small amount of empirical evidence available on the effectiveness of voir dire suggests that it may not be very useful in identifying biased jurors. The article reviews the literature on voir dire, discusses the effects of dismissal on attitudes of jurors, and suggests some topics for research.