Voir Dire Question
Voir dire is the process of selecting (or, more accurately, deselecting) a jury. When I begin a voir dire, I don’t have a plan; I know what topics I want to discuss, but I don’t know how I’m going to discuss them. At some point, I usually like to ask a question that everyone has to answer. I like it to require some thought and reveal something about my potential jurors. I’ve been experimenting with “scaled” questions — questions that have a defined range of answers — rather than either “yes or no” questions or open-ended questions.
How’s this for a question for potential jurors in a criminal case?:
Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree with the following statement?:
“I am who I am because of circumstances beyond my control.”
Technorati Tags: criminal defense, philosophy, voir dire
About The Author
[...] the use of scaled questions in jury selection in a criminal trial, something that I wrote about here and here. Chris proposed three scaled questions we can use in all criminal [...]