Criminal Law · answered on camera

How Attorneys Challenge Jurors You Don't Want In Court?

Name: How Attorneys Challenge Jurors You Don't Want In Court?
Uploaded: 2024-01-13T11:09:06Z
Channel: Spencer Freeman
Description: How do attorneys remove unwanted jurors? Through two tools, explains Pierce County, Washington attorney Spencer Freeman: a limited number of peremptory challenges (three to six, no reason required) and unlimited challenges 'for cause,' which demand a stated reason like clear bias. If a prosecutor strikes a juror by race, the defense can raise a Batson challenge forcing justification.

Quick answer

How do attorneys remove unwanted jurors? Through two tools, explains Pierce County, Washington attorney Spencer Freeman: a limited number of peremptory challenges (three to six, no reason required) and unlimited challenges 'for cause,' which demand a stated reason like clear bias. If a prosecutor strikes a juror by race, the defense can raise a Batson challenge forcing justification.

Excerpt summaries from the video and transcripts · how we make them

Law updateNOTE — current law: Washington has since gone beyond the Batson standard Freeman describes. Under General Rule 37, effective April 2018, a party no longer has to prove the prosecutor's purposeful discrimination; the court must deny a race-based peremptory strike if an 'objective observer' could view race or ethnicity as a factor in it. Washington was the first state to adopt this rule, and California later followed with a similar objective-observer test.

Answered by Spencer Freeman · Pierce County, WA

Highlights

0:52

— the limited peremptory strikes he gets in a Superior Court trial

1:16

— the Batson challenge that forces a prosecutor to justify a strike

2:25

— when a juror's answer makes a for-cause dismissal automatic

Frequently Asked Questions

How do attorneys remove unwanted jurors?

Through two tools: a limited number of peremptory strikes—three to six in a Superior Court trial, no reason required.

What is a Batson challenge?

If a prosecutor strikes a juror by race, the defense can raise a Batson challenge, forcing the prosecutor to justify the strike.

When is a for-cause dismissal automatic?

When a juror's own answer shows clear bias, a for-cause dismissal becomes essentially automatic, and there's no limit on these.

→ Full interview on Attorneys.Media

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Contact Spencer Freeman

Answered by

Spencer Freeman
Freeman Law Firm, Inc.

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