A chart for keeping track of challenges for cause in jury selection in a criminal trial.
The problems:
- Keeping track of possible challenges for cause in one place;
- Including the potential challenges established by the State or Court,
- Especially challenges that the State thinks it has completed, where they have not (e.g. because they have no idea how to ask a proper commitment question) and the challenges can be defeated or the venirepeople rehabilitated.
- Helping those helping us with voir dire (who might be interns or less-experienced lawyers) give us meaningful input.
The solution:
At a CLE some years ago, Robert Hirschhorn suggested a cause chart, with the potential reasons for cause at the top and a space for each juror.
This repository contains an iteration of the chart in .odt (OpenOffice / LibreOffice) and .pdf format.
If you use it, please let me know.
If you have any suggested improvements, please let me know.