Litigation

Mistrial Denied After Jurors Chatted in Zoom Virtual Jury Trial

Posted on August 20, 2020
Earlier this week in California, a mistrial was denied in a virtual jury trial when jurors were communicating with the Plaintiff through the Zoom ?chat? feature.  This was a mesothelioma case involving claims for personal injuries against two companies who allegedly caused Plaintiff?s mesothelioma while he was working on Navy ships...

Boston Marathon Bomber?s Death Sentence Vacated due to Possible Juror Bias

Posted on August 03, 2020
Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhorkar Tsarnaev?s death sentence due to a trial judge not properly vetting a juror for possible bias.  Tsarnaev was convicted and sentenced to death in 2015 for his role in the horrific April 2015 Boston Marathon bombing which killed 3 people and injured more than 260 other people...

To Google or Not to Google?

Posted on October 15, 2019
As attorneys, we go to great lengths to select the jury who will decide our client?s fate at trial ? yet today, there is a looming, additional silent juror banging at the door attempting to, and sometimes succeeding in, getting in ? Google and the age of information overload...

Reversible Error to Impose Time Limits on Voir Dire

Posted on October 07, 2019
Last week the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed an aggravated battery conviction based on a trial court improperly limiting the amount of time an attorney could ask questions to a prospective jury panel.  Strachan v. State, ___ So. 3d ___ (Fla...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

?Not Particularly Engaged? Juror Should Have Been Stricken

Posted on July 03, 2018
A trial court?s decision was reversed early in June for failing to strike a juror based on her nonverbal behavior.  The Fifth District Court of Appeal held that a juror being ?not particularly engaged? during jury selection was a legally sufficient race-neutral reason to strike the juror...

Voir Dire Lessons from Trial: Defense Perspective

Posted on November 10, 2017
Earlier this week, in a medical malpractice wrongful death trial in Gainesville, the defense lawyers did a very thorough job questioning the prospective jurors during voir dire. Below are a few of the questions they used to evaluate the panel from the defense perspective...

Trial Judge Reversed Due to Arbitrary Time Limits on Jury Selection

Posted on August 17, 2017
A first-degree murder conviction was reversed last month due to the trial court imposing arbitrary time limits during jury selection. In Hopkins v. State, 2017 WL 2983284 (Fla. 4th DCA, July 12, 2017), the trial court advised counsel, for the first time at the beginning of trial, that each side would be limited to three hours for voir dire to question the venire of fifty jurors...

Florida Supreme Court Revises Standard Juror Questionnaire

Posted on April 24, 2017
Earlier this year the Florida Supreme Court approved changes to the standard Juror Questionnaire, Form 1.983. There are currently only two standard juror questionnaires approved for use in civil trials by the Florida Supreme Court ? Form 1.983 and Form 1...

Court Lifts Limits on Alternate Jurors in Civil Trials

Posted on November 29, 2016
The Florida Rules of Civil Procedure have been amended by the Florida Supreme Court to remove the limit on the number of alternate jurors in civil trials. Effective January 1, 2017, Rule 1.431 has been amended to read “The court may direct that 1 or more jurors be impaneled to sit as alternate jurors in addition to the regular panel...

Juror’s Mid-Trial Tweets Not Enough for New Trial

Posted on October 31, 2016
This month, in a case of first impression in Florida, the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that statements posted by a juror on social media during trial were insufficiently prejudicial to require a new trial. The juror posted a series of tweets on his Twitter account during jury selection and trial which included: a) “I got picked as a juror … I hate this s___...

Court Errs In Blocking Peremptory Strike

Posted on November 02, 2010
A single mistake in jury selection can result in an entire new trial. Nowhere is that truer than in the area of “Neil Challenges” and peremptory strikes. A mistake there is usually reversible error per se. In Garcia v. State , 35 FLW D2328 (Fla 3rd DCA 2010), the Defense wanted to exercise a peremptory [...

Improper Timing of Peremptory Strikes Causes Mistrial

Posted on October 06, 2010
A civil trial on the West Coast of Florida ended in a “mistrial” today when both sides agreed that the Court committed error during the jury selection process by requiring the parties to exercise their peremptory strikes before having an opportunity to view the entire panel from which the jury would ultimately be selected...

Court Rejects “Confession of Error” in Voir Dire

Posted on September 30, 2010
Earlier this week the First District Court of Appeal, in a kafkaesque opinion, upheld a robbery conviction even though both the State and the Defense agreed on appeal that the trial judge had committed error during jury selection. In Hayes v. State, 35 FLW D2137A (Fla 1st DCA 2010), the defendant was charged with robbery [...

IPhone + Encarta = New Trial

Posted on September 20, 2010
A jury verdict was reversed earlier this month due to juror misconduct when the foreperson used his Iphone to look up the definition of “prudent” on Encarta during a break in the jury’s deliberations.  In Tapanes v. State, 35 FLW D2031A (Fla 4 DCA 2010) the court wrote: “Although here we confront new frontiers in [...

Can A Potential Juror Be Asked To “Promise” A Verdict?

Posted on August 19, 2010
A common technique in voir dire, especially by defense attorneys, is to ask each prospective juror during jury selection whether the juror will “promise” to return a certain kind of verdict (e.g. guilty or not guilty) if it is supported by the evidence...

Don’t Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Posted on February 25, 2010
Potential juror Sanders may have been sleeping during jury selection. Florida law is clear that “sleeping” during voir dire is a valid race-neutral reason for striking a juror  — not to wake him up,  but to remove him from the panel! See, Davis v...

U.S. Supreme Court Says Courtrooms Must Be Open To Public During Voir Dire

Posted on January 26, 2010
Last week, the United States Supreme Court held that trial judges should not exclude the public from courtrooms during jury selection. Eric Presley’s uncle came to court to watch jury selection in his nephew’s trial. He was the only spectator in the courtroom...

“Hearing About” Murder Case Not Enough for Cause Challenge

Posted on May 14, 2009
Yesterday the Fourth District Court of Appeal upheld the trial court’s denial of a challenge for cause directed at a potential juror in a case involving murder-for-hire. In Samuels v. State, __ So. 2d __ (Fla 4th DCA, May 13, 2009), the Court reaffirmed the longstanding rule that if there is any reasonable doubt about [...

Maximizing The Power of Peremptory Strikes

Posted on April 20, 2009
The law concerning the use of peremptory challenges in jury selection has been changing in recent years. There is a vast difference between Florida law and Federal law in this area. While “Cause is Still King,” the effective use of peremptory challenges can make or break the outcome of a trial...

SCOTUS Upholds Verdict of Improper Foreperson

Posted on April 15, 2009
Late last month the United States Supreme Court upheld the murder conviction of a man, Michael Rivera, who was convicted by a jury whose foreperson, Deloris Gomez, was improperly allowed to sit on the jury. Rivera v. Illinois, 556 U.S. __ (2009). During jury selection, Rivera’s attorney properly attempted to use one of his peremptory [...

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Posted on September 17, 2008
During jury selection in a car accident trial, the defense attorney (who had been hired by an insurance company to defend the case), told the jury panel: “I’m a consumer justice attorney, and I represent John Hooks, a merchant marine, not some fancy company, not some conglomerate...

Prospective Juror Not “Under Prosecution.”

Posted on June 23, 2008
On the day the jury was sworn - after a week of voir dire - a prospective juror got a traffic ticket. The ticket was for the “crime” of knowingly driving on a suspended license, a second-degree misdemeanor. No one in the courtroom on that day asked her about it...

“Conflicting Views” Raise a Reasonable Doubt

Posted on June 18, 2008
Today the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed a criminal conviction because the trial judge failed to strike for cause a juror who “held conflicting views” on the presumption of innocence. Initially, during jury selection the juror stated “he’s guilty until proven innocent,” but later said “I think it was a misunderstanding earlier…,” and then went on to [...

Update on Juror Pay

Posted on April 02, 2008
The section of The Florida Jury Selection blog dealing with juror pay has been updated thanks to the work of my brilliant law clerk, Kristin Bianculli. One of the most common concerns of potential jurors during voir dire is whether they will get paid while they are serving on a jury...

Update on Juror Pay

Posted on April 02, 2008
The section of The Florida Jury Selection blog dealing with juror pay has been updated thanks to the work of my brilliant law clerk, Kristin Bianculli. One of the most common concerns of potential jurors during voir dire is whether they will get paid while they are serving on a jury...

U.S. Supreme Court and Racially Discriminatory Strikes

Posted on March 20, 2008
The Supreme Court of the United States reversed a brutal murder conviction yesterday concluding that the prosecutor’s peremptory strike of a black college student appeared to be racially discriminatory. In Snyder v. Louisiana, 552 U.S. __ (2008) the Court held, in a 7 - 2 decision written by Justice Samuel Alito, that the trial court committed clear [...

Ban on Using Nationality to Exclude Jurors is Upheld

Posted on March 05, 2008
This Wednesday’s New York Times reports that a federal district court judge has concluded that allowing American-born blacks on a Bronx jury but systematically excluding West Indian-born blacks from the jury is discriminatory. Federal Judge William H...

Whitby Walks

Posted on February 19, 2008
Edgar Sylvester Whitby was prosecuted for permanently disfiguring his victim by throwing hot water on her. He was convicted of aggravated battery “by a clearly impartial jury” in an “otherwise error free” trial. But Edgar is a free man today, and the Supreme Court of Florida just turned down the State’s appeal of this case...

“Prudent Probing” During Jury Selection

Posted on February 12, 2008
A $900,000 plaintiff’s verdict in a rear-end collision case was reinstated last Friday by the Fifth District Court of Appeal even though two jurors had failed to disclose in voir dire that they had been injured and received medical treatment as a result of prior car accidents...

Cause Challenges for Caps On Damages and Rising Insurance Rates

Posted on January 26, 2008
This week, in Rodriguez v. Lagomasino, the Third District Court of Appeal reversed a defense verdict in an auto accident case because the trial judge failed to strike two questionable jurors for cause. During voir dire, prospective Juror Gutierrez said he would not favor either side and would be “in the middle,” but he had also said his wife had been in an auto accident and his insurance company was going double his rates...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.