A struck jury is a multi-step process of selecting a jury from a pool. First potential jurors are eliminated for hardship. Second jurors are eliminated for cause by conducting voir dire until there is a pool available that is exactly the size of the final jury (including required alternates) plus the number of peremptory challenges available to each side. Then the two sides exercise their peremptory challenges on the remaining pool, usually alternating. This procedure "has its roots in ancient common law heritage".
Commentators have offered the following (and other) advantages of a struck jury over a "strike and replace" jury:
- It is capable of producing a less biased jury than the alternative;
- There is no reason to hold back on use of peremptories, because lawyers have full knowledge of who will remain on the panel;
- Remedying an alleged Batson violation is easier, since court and counsel can view all the strikes and a ruling can be made before any juror is excused.
Read more about Struck Jury: Alternative Use, United States, New Zealand
Famous quotes containing the words struck and/or jury:
“Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury
Do I take part. The rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system—that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)