Voir dire is another common phrase in the legal profession, but likely foreign to individuals without any legal experience. The term “voir dire” is French for “to speak the truth.” As such, voir dire is an important part in jury selection. As one can likely understand, jury selection is a crucial part of any trial.
So what is the process for voir dire? To start, there is a venire or jury pool of prospective jurors available to select from for the particular case. The jury pool is comprised of a group of your peers that have been selected for jury service. The venire is made up of individuals in your community that may hear your case. With that said, the venire does not just include individuals from your immediate town; rather, these individuals are people from the county in which you live or counties depending on where your case is pending. Nonetheless, a jury pool can potentially include individuals with vast variety of backgrounds. Also, bear in mind, there will be more people included in the jury pool then there is will be selected as jurors to sit for the trial.
After the venire is situated, the prospective jurors will be questioned by either the lawyers representing the parties in the action or a judge. Who ultimately questions the potential jurors, the judge or the attorneys, is dependent on the court in which the case sits. Before the jury selection process, the parties often submit proposed voir dire questions, which are the questions the attorneys would like to be asked to the prospective jurors. The questions asked are dependent on the type of case pending. In addition to the questions the attorneys submit, the Court may have general voir dire questions as well.
Next, selection of the jury selection process occurs. The jurors are questioned on a variety of topics. Throughout this process, the attorneys can attempt to strike certain jurors from the jury pool to prevent the juror from sitting on the jury. The jury selections process proceeds until the jury that will ultimately hear the case is selected. Alternate jurors are sometimes included as well just in case one of the selected jurors cannot be present for one reason or another.
That leads us to the questions: Why is voir dire important? Voir dire is important because the parties want a fair trial and impartial jury. Voir dire allows the Court and the parties to question potential jurors throughout the jury selection process on biases or other reasons that would prevent the potential jurors from being impartial. In sum, voir dire is an essential part of litigation and trial.
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