"Jury Management For The 21st Century," New From The NCSC

Judge Gregory Mize has contributed so much to this blog already -- but look what he's sending now.  He wrote the rest of this post, and the new site he's announcing is really impressive.  It's not just for judges, either.   Any place your judge might go for jury guidance is a place you want to go too.

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The National Center for State Courts has just published several model judicial educational curricula focusing on two important components of jury trials: jury selection and jury deliberations. This education series, entitled "Jury Management for the 21^st Century," provides courts and judicial educators with a wide variety of teaching modules that can be flexibly arranged into programs that span one hour, a half-day, or more.

The "Managing Jury Selection Effectively" curriculum contains six, 60- or 90-minute modules: (1) "Obtaining Crucial Information from Prospective Jurors," (2) "Ruling on For-Cause and Peremptory Challenges," (3) "Judge & Lawyer Collaboration during Jury Selection," (4) "Respecting Juror Privacy & More during Jury Selection," (5) "Time Management," and (6) "Promoting Judge-as-Educator during Jury Selection."

The "Helping Troubled Deliberating Juries" set of courses contains five, one-hour modules: (1) "Improving the Deliberative Process," (2) "Helping Jurors Overcome Jargon," (3) "Responding to Deliberating Juries Having Questions or Reporting an Impasse," (4) "Responding to Misconduct/Mishaps in Deliberations," and (5) "Respecting Juror Privacy & Responding to Their Stress."

Thanks to a grant from the State Justice Institute and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers Foundation, the curricula are available without cost at http://www.icmelearning.com/jtm/. There, you will see that each module provides users with not only with detailed learning activities but also accompanying PowerPoint slides and extensive reference resources such as the A.B.A. Principles for Juries & Jury Trials.

To support the curriculum, NCSC and our project partner the National Judicial College will endeavor to maintain a rolling roster of experienced jurists, empirical researchers, respected veteran trial lawyers, trial consultants, and articulate former jurors who are willing to serve as faculty for programs that utilize this curriculum. It is envisioned that these faculty members would complement faculty based in the host jurisdiction -- together constituting a talented orchestra ready to present information-rich and locally relevant programming.

In addition to the weblink shown above, a limited number of CDs containing the entire curriculum is also available through my NCSC office. I hope the judicial members [editor's note: and nonjudicial as well] of the "Deliberations" community will make good use of this educational tool.