Observation Of Gfrann Zfran Zafar's Murder Trial

The artist who made this cartoon, Doug Davis, is trying to show the audience how poor our current jury selection can be. Jurors often lack interest and jump to conclusions quickly. The artist also portrays how most jurors are not well informed about the crime. For example one of the jurors in the cartoon says “The defendant looks guilty”. The artist is trying to show how this juror is judging to quickly without any evidence or other jurors opinions. Other jurors in the cartoon are letting their personal opinions and private lives influence their decision. For instance the juror says “I’m not prejudice, but I’ve had problems with his ethnic group”. Overall, the artist is trying to depict the flaws in jury selection. The artist is suggesting

Jeffrey Robert MacDonald was a U.S. Army officer and a medical doctor who was convicted in 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in February 1970. The reason why I chose this case is because this murder case is said to be one of America’s most enduring murder mysteries and the main topic of a best-selling book. Not only this, but I also chose this case because it took about 9 years for Macdonald to be finally convicted and the U.S army got involved and made their own investigation because they didn’t believe his story. This meant that this case had many twists and turns, making it a mysterious case that’s very intriguing and wanting to know more about.

A Pretrial Hearing is when the judge outlines the law to the attorneys regarding the case as a final attempt to achieve an out-of-court settlement. No attorney ever wants to go to court because the case that they took on now becomes very expensive and takes a long time for the case to reach a verdict. Most of these cases are you settled out of court. The defendants attempted to settle but the plaintiffs’ attorney wouldn’t settle with them because they wanted more money. Next, the jurors need to be selected. The jury selection started February 18, 1986 and ended on February 25,1986. In this case, the jurors were Harriet Clark, Jean Coulsey, Robert Fox, Linda Kaplan, Vincent O’Rourke, and William Vogel.

Manual was very calm and comfortable in the courthouse. Almost as if he was a veteran, and seeing how he is the Deputy District Attorney of Weld county I’m sure he has some experience under his belt. Within the first five minutes after the judge entered the room he got straight down to business. Asking for a proposed instruction for evidence being presented the jury be reworded and completely restructured. It was a very meticulous process that the court spent well over five minutes combing over while we waited on the jury. Throughout the day Mr.Pellicer was very blunt and confident, almost to a fault. Any objections or suggestions Mr.Pellicer made in court, Ms.Pearlman (the defending attorney) seemed to say "me too" after. It seemed almost as if she was playing catch up in with the prosecutor. In hindsight, the first five minutes of the case were a great foreshadowing for the events to come. He seemed very passionate about the case and condemning Mr.Olmeda. During direct examination Mr.Pellicer was very concise and direct with his questions, building a great base for his argument. The dichotomous questioning allowed for a great establishment of time, facts, opinions, and evidence. There were rarely any awkward pauses, or moments of shuffling through paperwork during questioning. In fact, Mr.Pellicer made a great use of the pauses during his questioning

In 2010, Cheryl Thomas conducted a significant piece of research, funded by the Ministry of Justice, that looked at jury trials and their actions during a trial. The report came to a conclusion that juries found it far easier to understand a trial when they had been provided with some sort of written guidance. From the report, the percentage that understood the questions in a case when there was no written summary provided stood at only 31%. But even when the jurors were given a page of summary of the judge's decisions, the percentage that were able to identify correctly both questions the judge wanted to be answered was only 48%. As a result, the Judicial Studies Board recommended that written questions were to be provided to juries in all

Thirteen people were killed and over thirty were injured at Fort Hood in Texas. Imagine sitting at home, hearing about this massacre on the news, when you get a phone call about your loved one's death in a military training center. Filled with fear and questions about the horrible event and how you will move on, flood your mind. For some families, this was the case on November 5, 2009. Who would do such a twisted, horrible thing after being part of the service himself? Nidal Hasan found a reason and planned this event out, and would later even admit to it in court.

Lastly, they argued that in the particular case of the applicant, there was no opportunity to raise the doubt of impartiality as none of the juror police officers had any previous knowledge of the case and the serving police officer, though he recognised the man at the court he did not know the man or his connection to the case. There was no dispute on the fact that the accused had murdered or not but only that was it on self-defence. Moreover, the defence counsel was consulted by the trial judge to give their consent the situation and counsel had not given any objections to the existence and continuation of the juror police officer in the jury. Additionally, there was no relevant fact to suggest that the members of jury acted inappropriately

Our text provides several example cases, however, I believe they mostly revolve around who can or cannot ask questions, whether the judge has to ask specific questions provided by the legal teams, but it does not cite cases that actually challenge the process or something other than race. As cited in State of Tennessee v. Cazes (1994), the purpose of voir dire is to “[e]nsure that jurors are competent, unbiased, and impartial. . . .”. The case of Tennessee v. Taylor (2011) challenges the manner of questions and if they created a prejudice on the defendant. Taylor asserted that the State’s use of a hypothetical question was asking for a commitment (how they would vote) from the possible jurors before the trial started. The Court of Criminal

Jurors should be exposed to public information to a certain extent. With privacy concerns in peoples mind some citizens refuse to register to vote or do not respond to jury summonses. They begin failing to disclose some personal information under oath especially if they are about sensitive matters. When prospective jurors begin to behave this way, a real concern arises, where the courts in the community may possibly be unrepresented with individuals who are not qualified to serve fairly and impartial. We should focus on what is in the information requested of the prospective jurors and what is the reason of why this information is being used by the courts its purpose. Deciphering what is relevant and not relevant pertaining to the case. Only a small part of the information that is obtained by the courts are useful for determining juror biases or prejudice. In one hand the jurors they have a

Within the juror selection process there is not only a prescribed genre of speech, but also prescribed participant roles. Noting the ways in which this

(Document D) The jurors that decided not guilty were from the area that the family from Florida so that means there are people who could blame them for their decision and that could affect their work or their home life. The jury system gives people the right to be judged by their peers but no one thinks about what happens to the jurors. If one person disagrees with what the jury decides. The decision made by the jurors will also affect them and not only the defendant.

For example, though a jury is considered to be made of one’s peers, this is not always the case. For many people become disqualified or ineligible. Next, essentially jurors are supposed to be impartial but at times they can find it difficult to set aside their own beliefs that they may hold against particular individuals, such as minorities. Thirdly, jurors tend to be more lenient than a judge, which causes a disagreement between the judge and the juries (Farrell & Givelber, 2010). There are three disagreements that can occur between a judge and juries: whether the defendant was guilty of any of the crimes for which he was on trial, disagreements between the judge and jury as to whether the defendant was guilty of some of the crimes with which he was charged, disagreements between judge and jury in which the jury hangs as to one or more of the charges against the defendant (Farrell & Givelber, 2010).

The concluding process of a jury selection to determine their eligibility as a juror candidates names, address and personal information of juror candidates are interviewed by lawyers or judge or by both, about their qualifications and closeness with the persons participation in the case. Defendants eyewitness and attorney approach towards details that might appear during the trial alternative elements that might reproduce on their enthusiasm and capacity to critic the case properly and justly in most cases interrogation are arrange into a group usually with direction of answer by raising your hand. Then they are follow up questions to the group. Candidates are often allowed to answer to delicate Voir dire questions either by a written or in

A jury is selected from voter registration list. Studies show data that the poor, the poor educated, younger age group, and people of color does not exercise their right to vote. To eliminate the shortage for the voter pool, the use of driver licensed, a list of utility user. In forming this list it is required to included people of color, ethnicity, and gender, but women and people of color must be included in all juries. The prosecutor gives his evidence to show that his defendant is guilty. However, the defense presents its evidence that the client is innocence. Next, the witness is called forward for cross-examination and re-examination for clarity. Finally, the judge informs the jury of their legal duties. Once, a verdict has been reached,

The goal is to gather a group of people with varying backgrounds to interpret the evidence. They select from a jury pool, or venire, which is a compiled list of eligible people. These lists are made from drivers license lists or voter registration lists, depending on the state. From these lists, individuals are told the case and interviewed, this process is called voir dire, and are determined if they can serve on the jury. Lawyers and the judge then ask questions to make sure that the potential jurors would be unbiased towards the case. Jurors can be dismissed by a judge if they are too biased for the case. Once all the jurors are selected they are sworn in (“How Courts