Sunday, August 29, 2010

Scaled Questions

Adding scaled questions during jury selection can help eliminate a bad juror from the venire better than traditional questions alone. In a few minutes you can sample every juror’s attitudes on a challenge for cause and do it discretely and accurately. A scaled question asks the panel to rank on a scale of 1 to 7 their answers to specific statements. The statements test the panel member’s attitudes toward authoritarianism which is an accurate predictor of that juror’s potential for convicting.

While framing the statements as challenges for cause will help you make your strikes, cause statements do not always produce answers that help eliminate authoritarian veniremen. Authoritarians may for instance strongly agree with a defendant’s right to remain silent and respond favorably out of a sense of patriotism, nationalism, or conflict avoidance. Their attitudes are nonetheless sclerotic and these veniremen remain prone to convict. Cause questions are good because they are relevant to a legitimate area of inquiry on voir dire. Nuanced questions will reveal a potential juror’s true authoritarian attitudes more accurately.

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