The key to jury selection is deselecting jurors who are harmful to your case and selecting favorable jurors. Each side is trying to strike bad jurors and keep good ones, which means you’re trying to strike their favorable jurors and they’re trying to strike yours.

Some argue that this ensures unbiased jurors presiding over the case. I don’t believe that. Mr. and Mrs. America, it is 2025 in the fine U.S. of A, and not one of us is unbiased. None of us, in this current social and political culture, is without firmly held opinions, views, and perspectives. And if at the end of jury selection, you don’t know much about one juror or another, or believe, mistakenly, they don’t have strong views on something, likely an issue related to your case, then your jury selection was incomplete.

Jury selection is not the time to convince the panel to see the case through your client’s eyes. The goal is to find and remove those who will not and to build a panel that leans toward your client or at least will keep an open mind and listen to your evidence.

The key to jury selection is to identify biased jurors, expose their bias on the record, and commit them to their bias to lay the foundation for a cause challenge. These jurors will never see the case through your client’s eyes, and because of that, they must go. Peremptory challenges are limited. Cause challenges are not — so long as you lay the predicate to support them.

Jury selection starts before jury selection starts, namely, securing the juror list as soon as possible to conduct your due diligence. Know what your jurisdiction and judge allow when it comes to snooping around a juror’s background, and work within those confines. For example, search all public records – criminal history, litigation history, home ownership, party affiliation, bankruptcies, divorces, traffic infractions, etc. Search social media – everything that is publicly available – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Reddit, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube – but don’t try to connect or friend the juror (that’s unethical). Do a web browser search – business ownerships, websites, articles about them, online resumes – anything and everything about them. Some investigators charge a fee for this service, or you can train your team to do this.

Define your worst juror profile – the juror most likely to hurt your case. These are the jurors you’re homing in on and with whom you’re having conversations to draw out their biases.

Know what questioning the judge conducts, how much time you’re allowed, and the scope of your permissible questioning. And whenever possible, have the prospective jurors complete a juror questionnaire. This will provide you with more information about them and facilitate your research on them.

When questioning prospective jurors, do the following:

Build a rapport.
Frame bias as human and common to all of us. “We’ve all had experiences that shape our views.”
Ask open-ended questions.
Listen more than speak.
Restate and confirm bias.
Move quickly from general to specific.

Don’t do the following:

Lecture.
Argue.
Embarrass.
Let them rehabilitate themselves.
Spend time with favorable jurors.
Do the other side’s work for them.

In personal injury cases (which I defend), common issues I probe:

Litigation philosophy – how they favorably or unfavorably view personal injury suits.
Burden of proof – whether they will follow the standard or raise or lower it (especially in cases where my client has admitted liability).
Damages – how they value money for injuries, especially for pain and suffering.
Authority & Institutions – their view of authority, corporations, corporate defendants, etc.
Personal Responsibility – their view of whether they control their life or life happens to them.
Victimhood – their view of whether they are victims and others are to blame for their lives, conditions, and situations.
Case-specific issues – specific factual matters related to your case.
Who they are – if they could have any job, what would it be? If they could be anywhere other than the courtroom, where would they be and what would they be doing?
Leaders or followers – evaluate whether they lead or follow at their jobs, in their lives, and at home.
“Friend and Family” questions – sometimes jurors hide their own biases but reveal them through people they know – “What does your family think about a case like this?”

Exposing bias is straightforward:

Funnel questions, starting with broad, to personal, to case-specific.
Probe their life experiences. Ask jurors to discuss circumstances that may affect their view of your case.
Normalize their bias by telling them that it’s normal for them to have strong feelings and it’s safe to share those views.
Listen for extreme words like “always,” “never,” and the like.

Commit jurors to their bias:

Reveal their bias.
Restate their bias.
Confirm their inability to set aside their bias.
Elicit key words like “always,” “never,” “would start at a disadvantage,” etc.
Don’t fix a bad juror – make them worse.

Use the 1-10 approach:

Ask the juror how strongly they hold their view on a 1-10 scale.
Your job is to get them to move up that scale.
If they say a “6,” ask them if it could be a “7,” and then an “8,” and so on.
This is a tricky approach, because a juror may provide a low number and not move from that number. Keeping that in mind, you can say, “It sounds like on a scale of 1-10, you feel strongly about that, let’s say a 9 or even 10.”

Question all the jurors:

Some jurors are shy and hate speaking publicly. It’s up to you, politely and safely, to get them to open up.
Ask open-ended questions and don’t let them demur or avoid your questions. I would rather know what all jurors’ opinions are and upset some along the way than make every juror comfortable and not know what a juror thinks.

Plant your trial themes:

They say you’re not supposed to try your case during jury selection. Some judges will let you, to a degree.
Introduce your theme and see which jurors reject it and which embrace it.

Jury selection is primarily about deselecting biased jurors by laying the foundation for cause challenges. I’m not worried about poisoning the jurors if someone has statements that show bias against my client and my case. I want to expose those opinions, I want them discussed, and I want other jurors to feel comfortable expressing their biases and committing themselves to those biases. The worse stuff that comes out, the better. The more free-wheeling and open the jurors are about their biases, the better. The last thing I want is a biased juror on my jury. And everyone these days has such strong opinions that no one is going to change their mind because a mouthy juror says he hates my client or my case.

Dig with each juror, and if you sense bias, explore and reveal it, and if a juror views the world as your client and you do, don’t reveal their biases for the other side to exploit and get them stricken for cause. There is no such thing as an unbiased jury. Your job is to have their bias favor your client and your case.

Frank Ramos is a partner at Goldberg Segalla in Miami, where he practices commercial litigation, products, and catastrophic personal injury. You can follow him on LinkedIn.

The post Filling The Box: The Rules For Jury Selection appeared first on Above the Law.