It's been a long wait, but the judge in O.J. Simpson's robbery and kidnapping trial finally made the questionnaire public. In fact, Judge Jackie Glass went twelve better. She released not only the blank form, but the twelve completed questionnaires filled out by the jurors who decided the case. (That link is to a CNN article which in turn links to each questionnaire separately. I'll put them in Deliberations' library as soon as I can.) Identifying information is blacked out with a marker, but most of the jurors' handwritten answers are there.
Two ways to use these come to mind right away. First, learn from the questionnaire form itself. In several places, the questions are particularly well designed to get direct information about jurors' specific experiences and conduct, not their (usually less reliable) personal assessment of whether they can be fair. The section on familiarity with Simpson, for example, asks not only what jurors think of him and his infamous prior case, but also poses simple questions like:
Advanced voir dire training Second, for as good a voir dire training exercise as you're ever likely to find, print the twelve questionnaires out and practice with them, with a group if possible. What if these twelve people were the venire instead of the final group, and you had to pick a jury of six? If you're like most lawyers, this project will be harder than you expected. To begin with, it's difficult just to physically manage the questionnaires themselves. Each juror answered 116 questions stretching over 29 pages. If you get the questionnaires ahead of a real trial, you (or your consultant) can summarize a lot of it. But many judges have jurors fill out the questionnaires when they arrive for voir dire, and if you do get summaries, they have the disadvantage of removing you a step from the juror's own document. Either way, it's easy to get mixed up, or to miss something you wish you'd followed up on. If it's hard to find what you need in the 348 pages of material here, you'll need a very good plan for how to handle questionnaires with a real venire of 50 people, or 150. Next, of course, think about what you'll ask in voir dire itself, and what you'll look for in the answers. What will you say to Juror No. 10, who says his "favorite public person" is Lenny Kravitz, and his "favorite historical person" is Jesse James? (Jesse James!) What about No. 7, a 67-year-old retired businesswoman and "economic development director"? She says both prosecutors and defense lawyers simply "have a job to do," and professes no strong feelings about the justice system -- but she had a brother who spent time in prison, and she's an ACLU member. About O.J.'s murder trial, she says, "I did not believe his guilt was proved" and "I did not think he should have been tried on the civil case; it negates first verdict." If you were prosecuting O.J. now, or defending him, what would you ask her, and why? Grab some colleagues and spend a rainy Saturday morning with the O.J. questionnaires. You won't be sorry. _____________ Note: Thanks to Trisha Renaud of Trial Advantage, Inc. and the American Society of Trial Consultants for finding these tucked in the mass of Simpson verdict coverage. Related posts here: Comments? What do you think? Would a long questionnaire like this help you, or tangle you in paper? If you've used them, how have you managed the data?
(Photo by Ray Moore - RAR Studios at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nilkin67/1990029347/; license details there.)
