It has been my practice for many years to run a criminal history on all the potential jurors for the jury trials I am associated with. Recently our jury questionairres changed and they deleted the "date of birth section" and replaced it with "age", so I first use our in-house system or run a "blind" drivers license check. I stay in the courtroom until the bailiff brings in the jury list with quesionairres, run me a copy and go to my office to begin the process. If I find anything, I email the prosecutor during voir dire. This doesn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes. Thank goodness for modern technology and a TLETS terminal on my desk. It sure scared me when I first read this post!

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Originally posted by Tim Flathers:
Well, for whatever it's worth, as GG noted above, one's criminal history is not a part of one's "private, personal" life. If someone on a DWI panel is offended that I checked and found out they had a prior DWI conviction, well...I can live with that.

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The one that is going to be the most offended is the one that didn't admit it in the first place when you asked that Q. That is the one that worries me and for all intents and purposes lied when he/she didn't answer. Worris me alot more that the one that had the conviction and was up front about it and tells us it changed his life and it was the wake up call he needed b/c he was on a fast track to ruin (and just so happens to be the one that the defense uses a challenge to get them off their panel).