Voir Dire and Jury Selection

Abstract

Abstract During the pretrial proceeding of voir dire, attorneys use a wide range of techniques to select potential jurors who will be favorably disposed to their case. Traditionally, attorneys have drawn on intuition, courtroom experience, and implicit theories of juror behavior to select favorable jurors. In contrast, scientific jury selection refers to the use of surveys and other social scientific tools to identify demographic characteristics, personality traits, or attitudes that predict jurors' verdict inclinations. There is a long‐standing debate within the legal and scientific communities whether either method of jury selection effectively identifies jurors favorable to a given case. This chapter describes the legal framework in which attorneys execute jury selection (i.e., voir dire), the procedures underlying traditional and scientific jury selection, and the history behind the development of scientific jury selection. The chapter provides a detailed review of the empirical research assessing the effectiveness of both traditional and scientific jury selection. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the limitations of this empirical research and a recommendation for a social‐psychological approach to the study of scientific jury selection that may remedy the current theoretical stagnation and advance research in the area.

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