Many criminal cases end up resolving before they head to trial. But if it looks like settlement is unlikely in your case and you’re headed for litigation, then you need to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to build an aggressive criminal defense. Although there may be a number of legal strategies available to you, something that you can’t overlook is the importance of jury selection.

Why Jury Selection Matters

It might seem like common sense, but the jury selection process can be crucial to your case. This is because the group of peers who will ultimately judge your innocence or guilt come to the table with their owned lived experiences, any of which could put you at a disadvantage. That’s why it’s important that you know how to draw out a potential juror’s biases and opinions that could be detrimental to your ability to obtain a fair trial.

Tactics to Ensure a Fair Jury Selection

During the jury selection process, you’ll have the ability to ask questions of each potential juror. You should be prepared to ask questions that get at the potential juror’s biases as well as his or her background knowledge of the case, which could shape the way that he or she already views the case and your innocence or guilt. After that, you can try to have a potential juror removed for cause, meaning that the potential juror is unfit to serve on the jury for some reason, or you can use a peremptory challenge to remove a potential juror. Here, you have a limited number of opportunities to remove a juror without providing a reason, but your motivation for removing certain jurors can’t be based on race, ethnicity, gender, or class. Just keep in mind that the prosecution has the same ability to question potential jurors and remove them.

Have a Sound Strategy from the Get-go

To build the best criminal defense possible, you have to have a strong strategy from the very beginning of your case, including as it pertains to jury selection. That may seem daunting, but with help from someone who is well-versed in this area of the law, you can rest assured that your interests will be as fully protected as possible under the circumstances. Hopefully then you can avoid the penalties facing you and get back to your normal life.