I have tried both criminal and civil cases How jury selection is carried out varies from court to court. In some courts the judge asks almost all the questions and in many the attorneys for the parties ask most of the questions. The judge is probably looking for a fair jury and trying to avoid any conflicts, like your brother arrested the defendant, etc. The attorneys are trying to slant the jury towards their client, i.e. if you represent a defendant charged with having an illegal weapon, but without another crime, like committing a burglary you MIGHT want NRA members. I'd be a little wary of that. A better example is that it is usually thought that minorities/democrats are more likely to come back with a "not guilty" verdict because they are less trusting of the police, while white suburban Republicans are more likely to convict. In any event, that's why your wife was asked about gun ownership. Apparently someone was concerned that gun owners would be might be more (? I would think less) sympathetic to an armed robber.

Remember, if the attorneys are doing the jury selection, they WANT you to like them. The last thing an attorney wants to do is upset a juror. The other jurors will be sympathetic to their fellow juror (gee hope that jerk does not pick on me like that) and you're starting off on a bad foot. I don't know if you would get away with refusing a question like that, but I would suspect that the attorneys would gladly let you answer a question up at the bench, with only the judge and the other jurors, or sometimes, in the judge's chambers. It's getting tougher and tougher to get people to sit on jurors and I think most judges and attorneys go out of their way to make the experience as pleasant as possible (as well they should).

However I disagree with SDavid's statement that jurors try the validity of the law. That just is not true. Jurors only get to try the facts of the case. You will be asked if you will decide the case on the law as the judge presents it, even if you do not agree with it and you will probably be asked to state something like that under oath.

Certainly some jurors ignore that. Whether one is willing to commit perjury and go back on one's word because of one's political beliefs is something no one else can answer; but that isn't how the system is supposed to work.

It really is a pain getting jurors to sit, particularly with child care issues and more employers being antagonistic towards jury service (whether legal or not). However most of the ones I talk to afterwards felt like they did the right thing by sitting on the jury and doing their duty

Hmmm, I never had anyone ask me how t sneak onto a jury, rather than getting out of it.

If they ask you what guns do you own and you "forget" the Barrett .50, MP 5 and gatling gun in your cellar, I would guess that that might be perjury. If they only asked you if you owned "any" guns and then they failed to then ask you, "oh any others?" then maybe not. You have to answer the questions honestly, but you only have to answer the question they asked you.

Each attorney has a limited number preemptory challenges, where you get to throw off someone without giving your reason. So even if they catch on to your secret evil affiliation with AR15.com, the lawyer who wants you off the jury will still have to use up a preemptory to get rid of you, which helps out the other side; since the "anti-gun" attorney does not want to use those unnecessarily. Just make sure you make them throw you off, don't fall for "Gee Mr. Gunowner, don't you think that this would be a tough case for you to hear fairly? Wouldn't it be hard for you to listen to this case impartially blah blah blah?" Tell 'em guns or no guns you'll hear the case fairly and make 'em throw you off, don't "agree" to be removed.

"Jury Nullification" is not an "accepted" legal principle, as far as I know. The judge will instruct you on the law i.e. if you find that the defendant possessed a magazine with a a capacity for holding more than 10 rounds manufactured after such and such a date you must find him guilty. You don't get to say, "Gee Judge that's stupidest law I ever heard of, cut the defendant loose."

"Jury Nullification" means that the jury then goes back and decides "I'm not convicting some dopey kid of a felony for fiddling around with a post ban magazine." It isn't really a legal term, I guess it really means that a jury decides to disregard the oath they took to follow the law and instead let an obviously guilty person off the hook.

It certainly happens, but it isn't something that a jury is technically "allowed" to do. You can't go out and say we find the defendant not guilty because that law is dumb, but if you talk the others into a not guilty or just make a hang jury that's between you and your conscience.

The jury does not "officially" get to check on bad laws. You only decide the "facts" If the defendant did X you must find him guilty. You only decide if he did X or not.

Yes say too much about "Jury Nullification" and I would guess that would get thrown off the jury "For Cause," meaning none of the attorneys has to use a preemptory challenge. The judge would probably say-"Whether you agree with the law as I am going to instruct you or not, you must promise to follow the law. If you don't agree with it you must petition the legislature to change it"

That said I admit that I would leave a gun rights activist on if I were defending someone with only a possession type charge, hoping for just that result. I can't advocate for it, but I want you on the jury. A felon with a firearm tho, no way. I would think that most gun owners are going to clobber the guy.

ADTECHARMS: Are these quotes actual rulings that stand today? I love the idea of jury nullification. I also like to think that the people sitting on the jury are aware of this and that they are also true Americans, but unfortunately that is very far from the truth.

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I suspect the response from the defense was "Yippee" and a prosecutor who muttered a bad word under his breath.

I don't know that I have given this a lot of thought before. I think it is as much, "that's not the way it's done" that makes jury nullification distasteful, as any fear that "they" will lose control of "us." That kind of talk certainly never came up in any trial I did. I practice mostly in a small town and there is not a lot of "us" and "them" feeling. I would guess the judge, the prosecutor and I would all think that we are part of the "us," but that juries don't get to decide the law just because that's how it is done.

A danger with jury nullification is that whoever is on the jury is putting their views ahead of whatever the law is. Sure if it happens on a case where you would agree that the law is a dumb one, fine. But I have usually heard jury nullification used in the context of a jury finding someone not guilty based on a claim of racial discrimination against the defendant or alleged police corruption.If it's your brother the taxi cab driver some jerk gets off the hook for robbing because the jury thinks that the cops in your town are racist goons, or the defendant had a tough life, etc. then it might not sound so good.

I think whether it is said out loud, or not, jurors try and do what they think is right (to a certain extent), and they probably always have.

NY's Court of Appeals (the hightest state court here) banned jury nullification back in "People v. Geotz"

Well, when I served on a Grand Jury, "We" (the Jury) were instructed by the Grand Jury Prosecutor, that "We" were the "Community" and as such had the final say if we thought that a crime had been commited or not.

You do have that option, but I'm curious what the presumed role of the jury is, if it's not to judge the law with the circumstances and facts of the case.[/quote]

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If there is a jury (at least in NY) the judge will "instruct" the jury on the law at the end of the case, which means he reads a very long winded and poorly written explanation of what "beyond a reasonable doubt" etc etc means. Then the jury is given a jury verdict sheet with questions that are sort of a flow chart. for example
1.Did the defendant hit the victim if yes go to 2
2. Did that cause serious injury if yes go to 3
3. Did the defendant strike the victim because he was feared that the victim was going to attack him-if yes to to 4 if no return guilty verdict
4. would a reasonable person in the same situation think that the victim was going to attack him if yes return not guilty verdit  if no return guilty verdict

That's sort of what they look like. It's kind of annoying that you don't get instructed on the law until the end of the case. I think it's confusing because the legal standard of self defense might not be what you thought-if you knew you would have paid more attention to what happened right before the fight etc.

A defendant does have the right to waive a jury trial and have the judge decide the facts. I have never done that. I would only do it where the facts are so nasty that a jury might just clobber your guy out of outrage instead of deciding whether he really committed a crime or not. Sex crimes, especially involving children, and crimes against animals, tend to get bench (judge) trials. I represented a woman who alledgely tried to sell one of her children once. That's one I would have waived the jury on if I had it to do over.