How do lawyers choose jurors?

What is the process lawyers use in choosing a person to sit on a jury? What are they looking for?

Attorneys choose jurors by using a system known as voir dire. This is where each side of a case has the opportunity to ask questions of the jurors to determine who would not be suited to serve on this case due to underlying biases. This is where the differences between federal and state court arise. In federal court, the judge is the one who generally conducts voir dire. the attorneys submit questions to the judge who will ask the questions to the jurors. In state court, generally each attorney is permitted to ask questions to the jurors in an alloted time period. At the end of voir dire, the attorneys are permitted to use for cause challenges to get rid of the jurors from the jury pool who would be tainted from delivering a verdict. This means for example if it is a murder case, juror fourteen's sister was murdered. This juror would be struck for cause because it would be hard for this juror to think about this murder case differently than they would think about their own sister's murder case. Then each side has an opportunity to exercise their preemptory challenges to get rid of a juror. This is where Batson challenges can arise. It is pretty complicated going into the ins and outs of jury selection but this is a bare bones summary.
they're looking for someone who will be sympathetic to their cause & they will get rid of anyone who is goign to have a bias against their client. i.e. if one of the potential jurors is a man whose daughter was sexually assaulted, a lawyer defending a man accused of rape wouldn't want this guy on the jury b/c he's likely to go for blood! a lawyer defending a guy accused of a hate crime wouldn't want minorities on the jury b/c they're more likely to "take sides" with the person who was hurt/violated.
It depends on the case, for example if your client is on a drug charge then you perhaps want a jury that lives in urban areas, because those in suburbs tend to look harsher on those sort of thing, but in urban area they dont because they see this type of stuff often, or if you have a client that commited a white collar crime then you would want well off jurors because bluecollar jurors would think to harshly upon your client. note that the defense and prosecution both vote for the jury. and have an amount of veto power untill x amount of jurors are called.
Lawyers look for jurors based on each case. The criteria changes. They want jurors that will be as impartial to THEIR side as possible, and be sympathetic to their argument.

For example, if it's a DWI case, the Defense Attorney will want jurors that have been in the same boat, to gain sympathy for the defendant.

The Plainiff (from the DA's office, in this case) will want jurors that have experienced some of the ill-effects of drunk drivers.

After that, both lawyers say they want these certain people as jurors, and they go back and forth on which jurors to pick.

After 12 are selected (18 in larger cases for a jury pool, in case the trial is supposed to last for a long time), the rest are dismissed.

One item that a lawyer once told me is if you don't want to be picked - BE VOCAL. Have an opinion, and make it known. Lawyers want to BEND jurors to see things their way, and they don't want it any more difficult by having a strong-willed juror who can turn the tide of the jury.

Why do you ask? Did someone get a summons? :)

Good luck!
In most cases, trial lawyers have little information about the potential jurors and the clients have little money or time for detectives to find out much information. The jurors have completed a written form giving basic information, but if they have told the truth or not is always a problem. The forms are basic, because no one knows what kind of case they will be asked to sit on, unless it's a specialized court.

As the others have said, each side wants jurors they believe will favor their side, and there are as many theories about how to do that as there are lawyers and experts who help lawyers select jurors.
"Voire dire", thier looking for people who are not biased against the parties in the case!!1111
They chose them on the basis of thier beliefs on the crime they are actually defending for the accused. If they are biased they will then let them be chosen as a jurer.
I once got called for jury duty... It was a case involving a child molester... Lawyer asked me what I thought.. I said hang him high... I was excused :-)
When people get called in to serve jury duty, you meet with both the defense team and the prosecution attorneys. They ask a series of questions related to the case to see if you will remain unbiased towards their client. They are looking for people who will treat their clients fairly and have no reason to be biased in the case based on personal experiences.
They choose the ones who look the dumbest and easiest to influence. Be offended if a lawyer chooses you to be a juror.

A corollary of the first statement is that doctors are rarely chosen to be jurors.
jurys are not chosen by lawyers, they are chosen randomly by the state. Then the lawyers pick from that random sample by who is susposed to be the most "unaffected" by the case so they wont be biased.
they dont- jugdes do.
Look straight up if your not an important person with money they dont care. If they will pick my brother-law that would pick, Bugs Bunny.*
I GUESS THEY LOOK FOR SOMEONE WHO is as much of a crook as they are.
it is done by a computer, and then they interview the people and decide who would be the best for their case and make them win.
The process they use is a group Q&A session. They call it 'voir dire' just to be 'cool' and keep the little guy 'down.' Must be a lawyer thing. I got called for jury duty this week... they put us in the courtroom, plaintiff's lawyer got up and asked questions to the group, then defense counsel did the same. Then the jury left the courtroom and the lawyers met with the judge for 30 minutes, and the 12 jurors (and 1 alternate) were selected. (I wasn't selected, but I did get a check for $6.28 later....)

Plaintiff's atty is looking for someone who not only can sympathize with his client's case, but also with the client herself. In our case, the plaintiff's atty spent a good 30 minutes on whether we all had a prejudice against foreign born Americans. He also took a lot of interest in people who (like his client) had been in a car wreck and whether they felt the process was fair. And of course, defense counsel is looking for people who are conservative (read: stingy).
get rid of people who think for themselves. get rid of people who are committed to the other side (i.e. anti death penalty, or eye for an eye, depending on what side they're representing)
When I was on jury duty, they asked a number of questions to see if potential jurors might be biased. Among these questions were: Are you a member of the police or related to a member of the police? Do you know anyone related to the case (defendant, prosecuting attorney, defending attorney, judge, victim)? Have you ever been a victim of a crime? If you answered yes to any of those, you had to go up to the judge who might ask you more questions, with both the prosecuting and defending attorneys listening in. Because I had been a victim of crime, the judge asked me to describe the crime and then asked me if I thought my experience would prejudice me in being a juror. Although I said no, the defending attorney "excused" me.
they give them an IQ test, and whoever scores the lowest, that's who they pick.
Big ****.
i'm not sure, my sister just got a letter in the mail asking her to be a juror
Lawyers generally pick the jurors by asking them a series of questions to find out if they heard anything about the case or have biased views. They are looking for people who are unbiased and have a neutral position on the case at hand.
When a person is selected for jury duty they MUST fill out this big questionnaire. They answer questions like having been arrested in the past, if they are prejudice stuff like this. The prosecute as well as the defense have copies of this and they know the jury. Both the prosecutor as well as the defense can challenge like four jurors without cause. All they have to do is tell the judge that they want to challenge juror #'s 1, 4, 6,12. (example) once challenged this juror MUST step down/ New jurors now step up so to speak. Now if there are ANY challenges then they NOW must show cause. This is a process that can last several hours into day/s Once done the trial can start.
Lawyers try to find jurors who are sympathetic to their clients. Sometimes, this is a long process, but not always. If someone has experienced discrimination or other bad things, and the client has been accused of this, the lawyer tries to eliminate those jurors. The client does not have to have done the horrible things that he or she has been accused of. Any of us would want our lawyers to pick the jurors that would sympathize with our cause, especially if we are innocent of such accusations. God Bless.
Lot system ....
by their work
Lawyers choose jurors by the answers to questions they ask. Questions like, have you or your family been in prison or jail are usually the key of making a decision.
I do not have the answer to your question, just an interesting comment.

I have been called for jury duty several times during my lifetime, and in different states.

Typically, this involved one whole lost day from work. In each case I was rejected. I have no idea if it was the defense or the prosecution or both.

So, there are some people they do not like. I think this might include the scientific type. You can verify that category from my blog, if desired.

As I have watched lots of stuff on TV involving juries and commentaries by jurors and the like, I do not recall a single instance of the scientific type.

See if you can find out why this is so...

Could it be because we are persuaded more by facts than by closing arguments?
Intelligence, occupation, prejudice

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