a) When impaneling a jury, lawyer cannot take race, gender, ethnicity, and religion into account. What are some characteristics, other than race, gender, ethnicity, and religion, which might be important when impaneling a jury for the examples given?
b) Is it good to allow lawyers to challenge jurors?
c) What is the important difference between challenges for cause and peremptory challenges?
d) The British developed the jury, and voir dire, but over the past several decades they have nearly eliminated both. In Britain, there are no juries in any civil case except one of libel or police misconduct. In over 90 percent of criminal trials, there are also no juries. In the few cases that do include a jury, voir dire is extremely brief. A judge will typically ask potential jurors if they know or are related to either party, or perhaps if they own stock in a company that is involved. There are no other questions from the bench and none at all from the lawyers. In most cases, this results in the first 12 people being seated as jurors. Is this better or worse than the American system?