There are many steps that need to be taken in order to maintain the integrity of the law as well as being able to provide a fair trial for those who are to stand trial in the court of law. There are many litigation consultants and jury research experts who are available to provide services that will be able to greatly improve the integrity of your case and the representation of your rights in the court of law. These experts and professionals are there to consult with attorneys so that they are able to choose the most suitable candidates to determine your final plea.
Jury selection consultants conduct a series of online mock trials and trial focus groups so as to determine which candidates have a predisposed bias or certain reactions to points in the case which will produce a negative response which will jeopardize the defendant’s case. Online mock trials and focus groups are used in specific trials and you, the paying litigator, should know when is the most appropriate to employ the service of a jury consultant; the following are some details about this question which you, the paying consultant, should know about these services.
To begin, let us clear the air, as they say, about when you should hire a jury selection consultant, which provides the necessary services for a fair trial; a jury consultant is brought in when a case is considered high-risk or when a lot of money and the reputation of the lawyer and the law firm is at stake. These experts come in and evaluate the potential jury candidates on a very meticulous level in order to notice any personal characteristics that could produce a negative final decision. Research is done on the potential jury candidate’s social media accounts to notice predisposed biases that ingrained within them; these experts are usually employed when there is a celebrity on trial or some who arouses strong feelings within people and the jury.
Jury consultants are either educated in sociology, psychology or in the law itself; here, they are able to cover a wide range of areas that can be overlooked by lawyers which can jeopardize their chances of getting a positive jury selection. It is always hard to choose completely unbiased jury candidates in a case which provokes a lot of emotion and at times outrage, but this the best way to choose candidates that will be able to suppress or not let those emotions affect his or her choice in the final decision.
Throughout South Florida, especially Ft. Lauderdale, there are many legal institutions that seek the counseling of jury consultants for their services. This not only shows the determination of these legal institutions to do what is right, but it also shows that even a small county like Ft. Lauderdale is able to seek these services to do what is right.
In order to do this, some methods are done to notice these unwanted characteristics. An online mock trial is the same as a regular mock trial only that, of course, it is done through a computer and over the internet. Both these methods are implemented to see how the trial focus group will react to the evidence which is presented before them; using this method, the jury consultant can make recommendations on which of the jury candidates is best to sit a jury member. They know what is smirk of disapproval or facial expression of disapproval. Though the trial focus group has an idea of what is going, as in they know the lawyers are trying to pick the jury candidates that will produce the desired decision, they do not know who is watching their every move to notice initial biases.
This does not guarantee anything, but it does help the chances of producing a fair trial for the defendant. Jury consultants do a lot more research into your social media to also see what sort of biases that person has. You see, people show you who they really are when no one is looking, well, this is quite ironic since everyone can see over the internet, but people leave their guard down when they over the internet and sociologist are able to conduct studies and do research on what they find about you. If a jury selection finds something that can jeopardize the case at hand you will not be selected, but if it is something you can use, you are worthy to sit amongst the others in the jury section of the courtroom.
Another method that jury consultants use to weed out bias and negative dispositions from the potential jury candidates is conducting studies on a focus group as part of the pre-trial screening. This method is conducted in the same fashion as would a mock trial, but with an emphasis on the details, more or less. The trial focus group in Ft. Lauderdale is presented with certain points of evidence that can be a little concerning to the attorneys; jury consultants will study the reactions and behaviors that the potential jury candidates manifest while they see the evidence or certain aspects of the case which is confounding.
As stated above, these are the best methods in which a fair trial can be conducted involving an egregious case or a public figure; the sanctity of a fair trial, which is what America is all about. Legal professionals know that everyone has a certain bias or opinion about a certain topic; public opinion is something that greatly affects the final decision which the jury has to vote on. There has been inequity and injustice in past jury decisions, which is why trial focus groups and online mock trials are so important to the foundation of justice because a trial needs to fair and illustrate the sociological characteristics that we so try to accentuate.
The idea of law as conceived by the founding father is a way which people are able to defend themselves in the court of law. This is not only crucial in the court of law, but in civilization itself; people need to be able to stand trial and be judged by jury without any prejudice influencing the outcome of the final decision. A person’s rights have to be rightfully represented in the court of law, it is a universal right that must be respected in the United States, a country that not only strives to respect its citizen’s rights and freedoms but one that has put it in writing and implemented into its national constitution.
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