Monday, May 12, 2014

Jury Selection

Jury Selection

In this article, a mother of two is on trial for the murder of her two children. This extreme case requires a very levelheaded group of jurors to prevent any immediate bias against the mother. The deeply emotional tragedy, however, is too much to handle for many individuals. The article goes on to explain the process in which attorneys had to undergo in order to find enough jury members to take on this trial. Some candidates broke down in tears at hearing the news, while others had past traumatic events in their lives that would have immediately swayed the decision. Due to these factors, a large portion of the initial 90 candidates were immediately taken out of the selection pool due to past life events, or obvious emotional bias.


To me, the idea that a group of randomly selected jurors can take on such extreme cases is a bit odd. Though, group decision-making can be more rational than that of an individual, having only 12 members does not seem enough.  No matter how careful the prosecutors are in the selection of the jurors, there will always be a bias in the decision-making. This is especially risky in a case so controversial because any vote can sway the outcome.

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