UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA
ORLANDO DIVISION
COURT’S INSTRUCTIONS TO COUNSEL ON JURY SELECTION (CRIMINAL TRIALS)
The jury administrator will summon a jury panel and perform the initial screening
for hardships. The administrator will bring any questionable hardship cases to the Court
for a final decision. Unless there are exceptional circumstances, thirty-five prospective
jurors will be randomly selected and numbered through a computerized process. They
will be brought into the courtroom and seated in the jury box and adjacent areas
according to their assigned number.
The Court will provide counsel with a list of the names of the jurors in their
assigned order along with the jurors’ completed questionnaires. (Sample questionnaires
are available on the court’s website at www.flmd.uscourts.gov.) Selection of the jury will
proceed in order, beginning with juror number one. Thus, if none of the jurors are
challenged, jurors one through twelve would be the jury; thirteen and fourteen would be
alternates.
The Court will begin the selection process by briefly explaining the nature of the
case to the prospective jurors. The Court will then conduct a general voir dire
examination from the jury questionnaire completed by each prospective juror. During
this examination, the Court may also ask questions provided by counsel as the Court
deems proper. Upon completion of the general voir dire examination, the Court will call
counsel to the side bar. So that the Court can address any remaining issues with the
panel, the Court will ask counsel for any objections to the voir dire process, for any
additional or follow-up questions, and for the parties’ anticipated challenges for cause.
Once all issues have been addressed, the venire will be excused from the courtroom.
The Court will then provide counsel an opportunity to discuss challenges with
their client(s) or case agent. Next, counsel will be asked to exercise any challenges for
cause to the entire venire. After the Court has disposed of any challenges for cause,
counsel will exercise peremptory challenges in an alternating manner, the Defendant’s
counsel first, and then the Government’s. The Defendant will be allotted ten peremptory
challenges; the Government will be allotted six. Initial challenges shall be directed to the
first twelve prospective jurors on the list. If, for example, the Government excuses
prospective juror number four, juror number thirteen will be substituted in juror number
four’s place. If the Defendant then excuses juror number eight, juror number fourteen
will be substituted and so on. Thus, there will always be a panel of twelve jurors under
consideration. Counsel will direct peremptory challenges only to those twelve jurors.
The Court will allow “back-striking” of any of the twelve jurors under consideration.
If either party “passes,” that is, chooses to accept the jury as constituted before
exhausting its peremptory challenges, the other party may also elect to pass and jury
selection will be complete. If one party passes and the other party exercises an
additional challenge, the party that passed may exercise its remaining challenges to the
newly constituted panel under consideration. The challenge process will continue in this
manner until all challenges are exhausted or the parties both accept the jury.
Once a jury of twelve has been selected, the Court will select the next two jurors
on the list to be the alternate jurors. Beginning with the Defendant, each side may
exercise one peremptory challenge to the alternate jurors. The venire will then be
returned to the courtroom and those who have not been empaneled will be excused.
Note: These procedures may be modified by the Court at any time, especially in cases
that are protracted or have multiple defendants.
