Members of Congress Seek Amendments to U.S. Jury Selection and Service Act
Representative David Cicilline, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and members of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus introduced the Equality Act (HR 5) to amend the Jury Selection and Service Act and other federal statutes to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
How to Respond to Questions from a Deliberating Jury—Lessons from Iowa
The losing plaintiff in a medical-malpractice case complained on appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court that the trial judge inappropriately responded to several questions posed by the deliberating jury. In affirming the verdict, the court gave an illuminating narrative on how to evaluate a trial judge’s response to juror questions.
Montana, Florida, and Louisiana Appellate Courts Carefully Examine Trial Court Denials of For-Cause Challenges in Voir Dire
Coincidentally, three state appellate courts recently rendered instructive analyses of trial court denials of for-cause challenges to prospective jurors. The Montana Supreme Court overturned a conviction because the trial judge and attorneys improperly used leading, yes-or-no questions to coax recantations from a prospective juror. The opinion in State v. Johnson, (__P.3d__, 2019 MT 68) encourages the use of open-ended questions to clarify or allay an obvious problem with a juror’s previous voir dire responses.
Similar to the instructive narrative noted above in the Montana case, an intermediate appellate court in Louisiana parsed a trial judge’s denial of defense motions to strike four prospective jurors for cause. In State v. Conklin the appellant argued that the judge’s errors caused him to run out of his allotted peremptory strikes before he could eliminate one remaining problematic juror, who participated in deliberations. The case highlights the intricacies of for-cause strikes.
A Florida intermediate appellate court found that a trial judge in a civil case committed reversible error by denying plaintiff’s motion to strike a prospective juror for cause, thereby causing the unnecessary expenditure of one of plaintiff’s three peremptory strikes against an objectionable juror. See, Pearson v. Philip Morris USA (Case No. 17-3636).
High Court to Review Juror Unanimity
In a previous issue of Jur-E Bulletin, we noted that SCOTUS will be asked to decide whether Louisiana’s recent abolition of less-than-unanimous verdicts must be applied retroactively. The High Court last week agreed to hear the case. In Ramos v. Louisiana, the Court will revisit its decisions in Apodaca v. Oregon and Johnson v. Louisiana and decide whether the Sixth Amendment right to a unanimous verdict applies to the states.
Jury Trials Take Hold in Argentina and Capture the Heart of a New Trial Judge
Judge Luciana IrigoyenTesta provides a beautiful testamentary to trial by jury in this video.
Notice of new or upcoming articles, projects, symposia, and other jury-related events is appreciated. We strive to have to keep the "Upcoming Events" section relevant and up to date. When alerting us to articles published elsewhere on the Web, please include the URL. We cannot reprint articles from other sources without permission, and generally only provide a link.
Disclaimer: Opinions contained herein, as well as material appearing in external sites to which this publication provides links, do not necessarily reflect those of the National Center for State Courts. Presence of any such material should not be construed as support by the National Center for State Courts or any of its associations, affiliates, or employees.
Broken Links: Although the Editor makes an effort to ensure that links included in the newsletter are active at the time it is sent, there will be instances when readers find that links are broken or un-viewable for other reasons. Unfortunately, this will happen occasionally.
NCSC maintains exclusive use of its subscriber lists. Information contained therein will only be used by NCSC and is never distributed to other organizations. All communications from NCSC contain an opt-out provision for your convenience.
