| The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution preserves the right of a defendant to a fair trial by an impartial jury. One key to impaneling an impartial jury is the process whereby the judge, the attorneys, or both, question potential jurors about their background, history, and beliefs in order to determine whether they are legally qualified to serve on a jury. This process, known as voir dire, is essential for identifying prospective jurors who hold any bias or prejudice that would prevent them from serving on the jury. Unfortunately, much of the research conducted has found that voir dire is ineffective in revealing bias in prospective jurors. Social science research suggests certain standards for question format (e.g., open, balanced, and non-leading questions) that should be followed for effective interviewing. If proper standards of question formation and interviewing are not being met then simply asking questions that meet these standards may prove useful for increasing honest self-disclosure and the elimination of biased prospective jurors. This research was an attempt to perform a systematic comparison of voir dire questioning with these standards. A content analysis was performed on the pretrial publicity and death penalty portions of voir dire of twelve capital cases to describe voir dire structure, question format and prospective juror bias. Results indicate that most of pretrial publicity and death penalty voir dire consists of prospective jurors being asked closed and unbalanced questions. Although asking open questions, balanced questions, and probes were found to be significantly related to revealing juror bias, few prospective jurors are asked such questions. Asking proper questions and avoiding the use of improper questions may lead to impaneling more fair and impartial jurors through the use of effective cause challenges and the more intelligent use of peremptory challenges. |
