In Search of an Impartial Jury

Mass media is just the latest challenge for courts in an ongoing quest for impartial jurors—a goal that might be nearly impossible to achieve.

From Pacific Standard

Who should decide the fate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 21-year-old behind the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing? The same question can be asked in Colorado, where James Holmes, the troubled gunman who opened fire on a crowded Colorado movie theater in 2012, awaits trial. In both cases, the search for jurors has begun.

The 6th Amendment guarantees these men the right to an impartial jury—one that is without pre-existing knowledge of the case or biases against the defendant, and will come to a decision based only on the information presented during trial. Both the Tsarnaev and Holmes cases are high-profile ones. They received widespread media attention, raising questions about court's ability to deliver an impartial jury. But the truth is, mass media is just the latest challenge courts have faced in an ongoing quest for impartial jurors.

While jury selection is arguably the most important aspect of any trial, the process has never been scientific. Lawyers and judges have always relied on intuition to weed out jurors with explicit biases—the ones people readily admit to having—and implicit ones, the perceptions and stereotypes that reside in our subconscious....

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