When people respond to a jury summons, they gather at the court house to form a pool of potential jurors from which they are called in groups for specific criminal or civil trials. There they are questioned by attorneys for each side and/or the trial judge about their background, life experiences, and opinions to determine whether they can weigh the evidence fairly and objectively. This process is called voir dire, an Anglo-French term meaning "to speak the truth."

Through voir dire, an attorney can challenge a prospective juror "for cause" if that person says or otherwise expresses a bias against the attorney's case. Each attorney can also exercise a limited number of "peremptory" challenges for which no reason is required. Those individuals who are accepted by both attorneys [or the trial judge, if the judge conducts the voir dire] are impaneled and sworn in as the jury.

Traditionally, American attorneys have had much latitude in conducting voir dire. The power to challenge-and the discretion to use it-is very important in our adversary system of justice; each attorney works for a jury most sympathetic to their side. Like all powers, this one has been subject to misuse and even abuse. As American society has evolved, so too has voir dire.

This section of "The American Jury" includes background, lessons, and classroom resources about voir dire and how it has been used, its strengths and limitations, and changes that have been made or proposed to make it serve the Constitution's mandate of an "impartial jury." Related information can be found on A Jury of One's Peers.

LIST OF LESSONS

Voir Dire: A Simulation
Teaching Instructions
Hypothetical Cases
Student Handout

Good Men and True? Lesson on the Voir Dire in the Haymarket Trial

Sacco and Vanzetti: Voir Dire of Prospective Jurors

If You Could Create the Perfect Jury, What Would It Look Like?

Race and Gender in Peremptory Challenges: Comparing Batson v. Kentucky and J.E.B. v.

Alabama Using the Case Study Method

LINKS TO RELEVANT SITES

Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879)

Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986)

E.B. v. Alabama Ex Rel. T.B., 511 U.S. 127 (1994)

Connecticut Outlaws Religion-Based Juror Challenges

6th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

PRINT RESOURCES

Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).

J.E.B. v. Alabama Ex Rel. T.B., 511 U.S. 127 (1994).

Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879).

Association of Trial Lawyers of America and Street Law, Inc. "Voir Dire: To Speak the Truth," When Justice Is Up To You: Celebrating America's Guarantee of Trial by Jury (1992: Association of Trial Lawyers of America), pp. 33-52.

Constitutional Rights Foundation. We the Jury: A Simulation for the Classroom (1987: Zenger Publications).

Keeler, Barbara. "Court of the Uninformed: Searching for Unbiased Jures," The Jury System, (1999: Newsweek), p. 14.

Hoffman, Morris B. "Abolish Peremptory Challenges," Judicature, Volume 82, Number 5, (March-April 1999), pp. 202-205.

Kennedy, Randall. "Race and the Composition of Juries," Race, Crime and the Law (1997: Vintage), Chapters 5-6, pp. 168-230.

Scheffey, Thomas. "Connecticut Outlaws Religion-Based Juror Challenges," Connecticut Law Tribune, April 5, 1999.