Page 11 - NBYNews December 2019 Issue

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By Margaret Heine
JUROR: IMPARTIAL AND FAIR?
In the last of our series, the
question is now whether or not you can be
an impartial and fair juror. Can you set
aside your personal views and feelings
and apply the law—even if you disagree
with the law, even if you dislike the
prosecution, especially if you dislike the
defendant?
Juries are supposed to be fair and
impartial and apply the law in a non-
discriminatory fashion. This means
setting aside your personal feelings in
order to render a decision consistent with
the law.
Recalling parts of our prior
articles: Could you find the person a
murderer for accidently killing an unborn
child when the mother was on her way to
get an abortion? Could you enforce the
law requiring that persons working in the
United States must have legal immigrant
status? Could you find someone innocent
of a crime even if you really dislike the
person? Could you fairly apply the law as
you are instructed by a judge?
A juror is ideally impartial and
willing to apply the law as the law is
written. A juror may bring into the
courtroom their own personal knowledge,
but they cannot be investigators or
researchers looking for evidence or
information about the participants in the
file. It is a common joke that we need
jurors who have never read a newspaper
or listened to the news in high profile
cases. No, we simply need jurors who can
set aside their personal beliefs and apply
the law as they are instructed.
The process of jury selection is
called ‘voir dire’. Prospective jurors are
called to be interviewed by the lawyers
for the parties in the case as well as the
judge. Each party gets a certain number of
jurors that they can dismiss without any
explanation, and the judge gets
exemptions also to dismiss a juror so that
the parties do not utilize their exclusions.
The intensity of the questioning
frequently depends on the severity of the
case and what is at stake in the case. The
attorneys and judge will try to determine
if you have any biases or opinions which
they believe mean you cannot be
impartial and fair in the trial process.

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