Getting the Most Out of Jury Questionnaires

Approximately two years ago (1990), we devoted an issue of this newsletter to the topic of what jury questionnaires are and how to construct them. These questionnaires often run 15 to 30 pages, with some reaching lengths of 50 or more pages. As such, the potential exists for the quantity of information available from these questionnaires to overwhelm attorneys during jury selection. The potential for information overload has led us to revisit the topic of jury questionnaires to insure that attorneys can make the best use of these questionnaires where available. This article will illustrate how to manage the information available on these questionnaires.

Jury Questionnaires

Jury questionnaires, which are used to gather information concerning jurors for use in jury selection, address a variety of aspects of the jurors’ lives, including:

• Background characteristics (e.g., age, occupation, race, educational background, and marital status)
• General experiences (e.g., prior jury service, military service, hobbies, television viewing habits, and organizational membership)
• Case-related experiences (e.g., unsatisfactory experiences with doctors or other relevant entities, prior use of a party's product, being a victim of a relevant crime, and involvement in traffic accidents)
• Knowledge of the witnesses, attorneys, or parties (e.g., Do jurors know any of the individuals, parties, or entities connected to the case who are listed in the questionnaire?)
• Awareness of the case (e.g., How much have the jurors heard about the case and what do they recall?)
• Opinions (e.g., What are the jurors’ opinions concerning "sting" operations, use of force by police, and various legal principles)

Prior to their being questioned on voir dire, jurors complete the questionnaires. Often, jurors complete these questionnaires when they arrive at court for the trial. In some cases, the questionnaires are sent along with the jurors’ summonses for service and are completed and returned by mail. Copies of the completed questionnaires are distributed to the parties and the judge. Ideally, the completed jury questionnaires are made available to the parties far enough in advance of the voir dire questioning to allow for the proper evaluation of the information they contain (e.g., a several hour or an overnight recess).

Condensing the Information

One of the difficulties in using jury questionnaires, particularly lengthy ones, is that they can be bulky and awkward to use in court. This problem is heightened when the questioning of jurors occurs in a group setting where the attorney must examine several questionnaires at one time. The often-used strategy of employing "post-its" and/or highlighting markers to identify critical information often is defeated by markers falling off or notes overlooked in the process of shuffling papers.

Steps should be taken to reduce the information the jury questionnaire contains to a more easily managed form. One way is the use of a juror summary form, a standardized form for recording desired information from the jury questionnaire. This form will usually be one or two pages in length, depending on the size and complexity of the jury questionnaire.

The facing page illustrates part of a sample juror summary form for use with a jury questionnaire in an excessive force case. This juror summary form represents a checklist approach (with comments) to reducing information contained on a 15-page, 66-question jury questionnaire to one legal-size form. The first section contains basic information on the juror, e.g., name, sex, race, age, education, and occupation. The second section converts numerous general and case-specific experiences into a list of identifying phrases with a "yes/no" response and space for associated comments, if necessary. In the third section, we see some of the critical opinions that were asked for in the questionnaire. The answers to these questions, such as "Q43: Do you have any reservation or question about the duty of a police officer not to use guns or nightsticks in inappropriate circumstances?", are rated as either positive (pos), neutral (neut), or negative (neg) as it pertains to the client's position.

The final section contains evaluations of the juror based on the jury questionnaire and the answers to voir dire questions. These evaluations consist of the leadership potential of the juror (leadership), the overall rating of juror favorability (rating), the decision as to what to do with the juror (decision), and any associated comments regarding the juror (comments). While the final section is not necessarily exclusively based on the jury questionnaire, the summary form provides a good location for either tentative or final evaluations of jurors.

Highlighting Information

To further enhance the utility of the information, attorneys should highlight valuable or key information on the juror summary form. Highlighting can be done by printing the relevant questions on the form in bold print or capital letters (as was done in our example here), or manually highlighting answers as they are recorded on the form.

SAMPLE JUROR SUMMARY FORM

NAME: __________________________JUROR (SEAT) #: _____

ADDRESS: _______________________  SEX: ___   RACE: ____

AGE:____ MARTIAL STATUS:______________    

OCCUPATION: _______________________________________

EDUCATION: _____________    TRAINING/STUDY: ________

SPOUSE RACE: _______    SP. OCCUPATION: _____________

COMMENTS: _________________________________________

Computer-Assisted Processing

When time and resources permit, the jurors' answers to the questionnaires should be transferred from the jury questionnaires to a computer storage system. Storing the data for jurors on computer yields several benefits:

First, attorneys can structure how the information is presented so that only the information that is important is printed on the form. However, any additional information is still stored and can be retrieved/printed at any time.

Second, the computer can be used to print forms that contain a summary section consisting of answers of concern or "red flags" for each juror. For example, when certain information is of concern (e.g., certain occupations, prior experiences, and opinions), placing a section at the end of the juror summary form that lists any red flag responses for each of the jurors is very valuable.

Third, a computer storage system is very efficient retrieving and processing information on large numbers of jurors. Attorneys can rapidly examine the distribution of jurors in the trial venire based on any stored characteristic. For example, if the attorney wants to know the distribution in the trial venire of males, victims of crime, important opinions, various leadership ratings, or favorability scores, or some combination of relevant characteristics, the computer need only be instructed to produce the requested information.

Fourth, attorneys can more effectively exercise their peremptory challenges by printing the order in which jurors will be considered along with important information associated with these jurors. For example, a listing of the key characteristics of jurors in a hypothetical trial venire is illustrated below. The attorney can use such a list to have a clearer picture of the best strategy for exercising peremptory challenges in light of the impact of removing any particular juror.

Finally, it is relatively easy to compare individual jurors to the results of any jury studies conducted in the case. In many cases, jury research studies, such as surveys and trial simulations, can provide information as to the profiles of favorable and unfavorable jurors. These profiles are often in the form of mathematical equations. Computers can easily calculate the favorability of jurors when such profiles are available. This information is extremely useful in those trial jurisdictions where attorneys must exercise their peremptory challenges without the benefit of questioning the jurors who will replace the excluded jurors.

Evaluation Time

When using jury questionnaires, and in particular when using a juror summary form, attorneys should request that the completed questionnaires be made available sufficiently ahead of time to allow proper evaluation of the information.

Several methods exist that will allow sufficient time for the evaluation of information jury questionnaires contain. First, jurors can be mailed the questionnaires ahead of the date of trial with instructions for their return prior to trial. The returned questionnaires are then made available to the parties one to several days before trial for their consideration. Second, when jury questionnaires are completed at trial, jurors can be given a several hour recess or an overnight recess to allow time for the questionnaires to be copied, distributed, and evaluated. Finally, when only a short break is available, attorneys (and others) can divide up the stacks of questionnaires and complete the juror summary forms about the jurors.