Editing Jury (section)

== Jury selection ==
{{Main|Jury selection}}
[[File:Jury duty.jpg|300px|thumb|right|About 50 prospective jurors awaiting jury selection]]

Jurors are expected to be neutral, so the court may inquire about the jurors' neutrality or otherwise exclude jurors who are perceived as likely to be less than neutral or partial to one side. [[Jury selection]] in the United States usually includes organized questioning of the prospective jurors (jury pool) by the lawyers for the plaintiff and the defendant and by the judge—[[voir dire]]—as well as rejecting some jurors because of bias or inability to properly serve ("challenge for cause"), and the discretionary right of each side to reject a specified number of jurors without having to prove a proper cause for the rejection ("peremptory challenge"), before the jury is [[wikt:impanel|impaneled]].

{{anchor|alternate}}Since there is always the possibility of jurors not completing a trial for health or other reasons, often one or more alternate jurors may be selected. Alternates are present for the entire trial but do not take part in deliberating the case and deciding the verdict unless one or more of the impaneled jurors are removed from the jury.  For example, in the United Kingdom, a small number of alternate jurors may be empanelled until the end of the opening speeches by counsel, in case a juror realises they are familiar with the matters before the court.

Jurors are selected from a jury pool formed for a specified period of time—usually from one day to two weeks—from lists of citizens living in the jurisdiction of the court. The lists may be electoral rolls (i.e., a list of registered voters in the locale), people who have driver's licenses or other relevant data bases.  When selected, being a member of a jury pool is, in principle, compulsory. Prospective jurors are sent a [[summons]] and are obligated to appear in a specified jury pool room on a specified date.

However, jurors can be released from the pool for several reasons including illness, prior commitments that cannot be abandoned without hardship, change of address to outside the court's jurisdiction, travel or employment outside the jurisdiction at the time of duty, and others. Often jurisdictions pay token amounts for jury duty and many issue stipends to cover transportation expenses for jurors.  Work places cannot penalize employees who serve jury duty. Payments to jurors varies by jurisdiction.<ref>[http://www.ncsconline.org/WC/CourTopics/StateLinks.asp?id=47&topic=JurMan] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120427204517/http://www.ncsconline.org/WC/CourTopics/StateLinks.asp?id=47&topic=JurMan|date=April 27, 2012}}</ref>

In the United States jurors for [[grand juries]] are selected from jury pools.

Selection of jurors from a jury pool occurs when a trial is announced and juror names are randomly selected and called out by the jury pool clerk.  Depending on the type of trial—whether a 6-person or 12 person jury is needed, in the United States—anywhere from 15 to 30 prospective jurors are sent to the courtroom to participate in ''voir dire'', pronounced {{IPA|fr|vwaʁ diʁ|}} in French, the oath to speak the truth in the examination testing competence of a juror, or in another application, a witness. Once the list of prospective jurors has assembled in the courtroom the court clerk assigns them seats in the order their names were originally drawn. At this point the judge often will ask each prospective juror to answer a list of general questions such as name, occupation, education, family relationships, time conflicts for the anticipated length of the trial. The list is usually written up and clearly visible to assist nervous prospective jurors and may include several questions uniquely pertinent to the particular trial. These questions are to familiarize the judge and attorneys with the jurors and glean biases, experiences, or relationships that could jeopardize the proper course of the trial.

After each prospective juror has answered the general slate of questions the attorneys may ask follow-up questions of some or all prospective jurors.  Each side in the trial is allotted a certain number of challenges to remove prospective jurors from consideration. Some challenges are issued during voir dire while others are presented to the judge at the end of voir dire. The judge calls out the names of the anonymously challenged prospective jurors and those return to the pool for consideration in other trials. A jury is formed, then, of the remaining prospective jurors in the order that their names were originally chosen. Any prospective jurors not thus impaneled return to the jury pool room.