This is my talk on jury selection—the law, the science, and the practice—from the State Bar of Texas Advanced Criminal Law Course in San Antonio in July 2012.
My accompanying paper on Texas’s law of jury selection is here.
My paper on simple rules for better jury selection is here.
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About The Author
Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.
I found this very informative. I will bookmark it for future reference.
No, seriously. Thanks.
Thanks for posting the video. It’s very detailed and thus quite helpful. Too bad I could not get CLE credit for it.
[…] or against all without mentioning the specific facts of the case at hand. As Mark Bennett says in his lecture on jury selection (more on that in a second), what we really want to do, as lawyers, is to take each juror aside and […]
Mr. B., on the heels of viewing the “Bennett Method”, I had the opportunity to receive a Jury Summons. This time, instead of filling in the Disqualifications box — I have been convicted of a theft or a felony and hoping the next notice is properly delivered so I can rinse & repeat, I’m going to participate up until the point I’m shown the door.
One question I’ll be pondering the answer to is — In the pre-cherry-picking process of jury selection would it be considered a rights violation when the wrongfully convicted are disqualified due to being lumped in with the rightfully convicted in one vague question? Despite this itch, thanks for sharing the inspiring lecture for the: clients, voters & taxpayers of tomorrow will have you to thank if the methods are utilized and jurors are treated like humans vs. numbers up front.
Mark, something is off when I print from the PDF on the Texas Law of Jury Selection paper (and maybe its just me), but pages 14–17 print out with the numbers 11–14 making it appear that pages are missing.
With regard to the question of “how many of you have religious beliefs that preclude you from judging others?”, do you think that the defendant has standing to assert the people’s rights to serve on a jury?
If it’s anything like Equal Protection, they can. See, for example, Batson and McCollum.