Vox

Musings, rants, rambling, general nonsense

Voir Dire in Arizona

Posted on | September 19, 2013 | No Comments

I recently had the great fortune of being called for jury duty* Since I was not selected, I can share some of the general bits here.
voir dire
For instance, the defendant was facing firearms possession charges. This lead to voir dire involving firearms related questions. In Arizona, with a beginning jury pool of 48 people, it goes something like this:

Do any of the prospective jurors belong to, or do any of your family members/close friends belong to, the NRA or any such organization? 44 hands go up

Do any of you personally own a firearm, or do any of your family members/close friends own a firearm? 47 hands go up

Do any of you think that handguns should be banned? No hands. Zero

Do any of you feel that assault rifles should be banned? Six hands (a bit disappointed that no clarification was given as to what constituted an assault rifle)

Do any of you feel that current firearms laws are too lax or need to be toughened in any way? Two hands.

Do any of you have, or do any of you have friends/family who have, specialized training with firearms or in marksmanship? 30 hands.

Et cetera. It was almost comical how not anti-gun the group was.
(Since the charges were that a convicted felon had multiple weapons stashed in his home, I’m not sure how many of those questions would really have had any bearing. Perhaps that is a list she uses anytime there is a gun involved at all)

Side note: As we, the unchosen, walked toward the elevators to leave, a young man in our group spoke to a woman behind me. I heard him saying, “I actually hate guns. They are stupid. I think they are for cowards.” Putting aside the ridiculousness of his statement, that is exactly the sort of information the judge was attempting to elicit with her tedious string of questioning. Certainly, if he felt that way, he should have piped up when it would have made a difference – perhaps he was just too cowardly to tell the truth.

* Yes, I’m being sarcastic. I don’t mind jury duty, but I certainly don’t relish the idea, either.



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Category: AZ, Boom, Law, politics

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