I have an injury to a child trial (shaken baby or possibly slammed baby case) coming up and it is a bad one in that the victim was a 7 week old baby and the defendant is an 18 year old and probation eligible. Anyone got any great hypos etc. to help me not lose all of my good State's jurors due to the ability or more likely inability to consider probation factor? Any help would be appreciated. I had a case before involving a 3 year old victim and lost a ton of jurors due to the probation issue. If you do not want to respond on the forum, my e-mail is bcoda21@hotmail.com thanks.

[This message was edited by JScroggins on 05-19-04 at .]

I don't have a specific hypo, but I cannot see where the age of your victim needs to come in during voir dire. Describe the entire age range for a child victim. It might save a few good jurors.

I have no doubt the defense will bring up the child's age in anyway possible, so I have no doubt that it will be brought up. I can of course object if defense gets too specific, but I don't think I can keep it totally out of voir dire. They will want to bring it up to knock as many strong state jurors and parents off the panel as possible.

You go first. Make it good.

You don't need jurors that can give probation in your case, just a hypothetical case, that's it. Wouldn't everyone feel sorry for a retarded 18 (nephew, grandchild, familymember, etc...) year old that might have known better, but, through a chemical imbalance had some problems at the time that are now being addressed through medication? And, he doesn't live there, so no chance to reoffend?

That's a hypothetical case they could give probation on.

When I am qualifying the jurors I use the following:

"The law says that potential jurors must be able to consider the full range of punishment. All that is really saying is that you should wait until you hear the facts before you make a decision. Some people suffer from what I call
"Judgemental Impatience". My Dad was such a person. He would read about a case in the paper where a jury gave someone probation for a serious crime and he would say "Well I would never give probation if I was a juror on that type of case, no matter what the facts are" To which I would respond that he would never have to worry about being a juror if he can't wait till he hears the facts before deciding punishment. It's kind of like the Queen in Alice In Wonderland who wanted to have the punishment precede the trial. Does anyone on the panel feel the way my Dad does? Is there anyone who can't tell both sides that they will wait until they hear all the evidence before deciding that they can't fairly consider part of the range of punishment?"

It works for me.

Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed, responded on the forum or called with ideas and hypos etc. I appreciate all of the information and suggestions. As usual I knew who to turn to.