Using social science techniques to get inside the heads of prospective jurors is employed in many, if not most, civil jury trials today, producing a bonanza for consultants in the field. As a science, it dates back three decades to the Harrisburg Seven trial of anti-Vietnam War protestors.
As Joel D. Lieberman and Bruce D. Sales argue in Scientific Jury Selection, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sought funds from Congress to control antiwar protestors, including Catholic priests Philip and Daniel Berrigan. Upon their indictment, the government deliberately moved their trial to the conservative bastion of Harrisburg, PA. In reaction, sociologist Jay Schulman and other antiwar supporters formed a coalition to help the defense create a more impartial jury.
The trial strategy the defense employed was risky by any standards -- they proclaimed the defendants' innocence at the outset and called no witnesses. Seven days of jury deliberation ended in a hung jury, and the defendants were never retried. The rest, as they say, is history.
Joel D. Lieberman, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nevada; and Bruce D. Sales, professor of psychiology, sociology, psychiatry and law at the University of Arizona, trace the history of jury selection, the purpose of voir dire, and the influence of demographics, personality, and attitudes on jury selection. They examine how prospective jurors are questioned and observed for nonverbal behavior, and suggest how scientific jury selection is likely to evolve in the future.
