I guess I’ve never paid attention to any trial’s jury selection before and I’m not exactly watching all this but reading Nate’s updates. I think he said they had 9 in the pool from the first group of 16 and need 50 and as I understand the jury will actually be 18 (12+6 alternates). Can someone explain the process a bit more to me?
So far I think I have gathered that potential jurors are given a questionnaire to complete. I didn’t catch how many that might be or whether they all have to report to the court house each day or they just estimate how many they will get to in a day and just have that many show up each day?
Then it appears they are bringing in a group of 16 at a time and doing this void dire questioning where they excuse some and then they question them one by one and I think Nate was saying 9 of the first 16 advanced to the 50 person jury pool after the individual questioning. Do I have that right?
And I think they they are questioning the 2nd group of 16 now - well I think there’s only 12 of those 16 left at this point to continue the group questioning so far but not looking for the specific number here - just trying to understand the process. It appears that the Judge is determined that they complete the questioning of this group today - did I get that right?
Now does that mean that only these 32 had to show up at court today or are there others who were here today but have to come back tomorrow because they just didn’t get to them today?
And when they do get this pool of 50 who advance beyond the group questioning and the individual questioning… Do the rest who had to fill out the questionnaire just get told they are not needed? Or are they still asked to be waiting to see if the 18 jurors can be picked from the pool of 50?
How do they reduce the pool from 50 to the jury and alternates of 18? Is it more individual questioning? If so, how is that questioning different from what they are doing today to get the 50 in the pool? Do they just take the first 18 of those 50 that no one challenges? Is it possible to get through those 50 and still not have 18? If so, do they go back to those who were released previously without being questioned and start the process again to get whatever number they may still need?
Sorry, I know this is a lot of questions but as I said I guess I’ve never paid any attention to this process before and I just want to understand it better. So many of you are so much more knowledgeable than I am about such things and you are always so helpful and I do appreciate it.