NCJ Number
108867
Journal
Case and Comment Volume: 93 Issue: 1 Dated: (January-February 1988) Pages: 18-24
Date Published
1988
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article discusses two major approaches to exercising peremptory challenges -- the sequential method and the struck jury method -- and focuses on the relative advantages of the latter over the former.
Abstract
The sequential method involves exercising challenges for cause and peremptory challenges prior to the examination of all the potential jurors to be considered. The struck jury approach delays the exercise of peremptory challenges until after all eligible jurors are questioned. The article examines the basic voir dire situation and then explains how the two methods operate. According to the author, the fundamental difference between the two rests in the information base which attorneys have at the time they exercise their peremptory challenges. An example illustrates the relative differences, emphasizing that the sequential method requires that attorneys make decisions on exercising their challenges under a condition of fundamental uncertainty -- they do not know who will replace those jurors challenged. Situations which exacerbate shortcomings of the sequential method are described, such as when opinions regarding the case are polarized in the trial community or the last peremptory challenge available is being exercised. 20 footnotes.