This companion book to Mastering Voir Dire: Gain An Edge in Questioning and Selecting Your Jury, 4th Edition (2018) educates the reader on how to create and use supplemental juror questionnaires. As one of the nation's most experienced trial consultants, Dr. Frederick provides a valuable guide to understanding, creating, and more effectively utilizing supplemental juror questionnaires.
Topics covered include:
- Basic components of supplemental questionnaires
- Methods for using these questionnaires
- Benefits in using supplemental questionnaires
- Designing questionnaires, including the benefits of different question formats
- Tips for phrasing questions
- Tips for designing the overall questionnaire
- Maximizing the utility of restricted-length questionnaires
After exploring the fundamentals of sound questionnaire design and implementation, this book provides 22 supplemental juror questionnaires from a variety of criminal and civil trials used across the country. In the criminal area, these trials include Colorado v. James Eagan Holmes (Capital murder-Aurora theater shooting), U.S. v. Conrad Black (fraud), Ohio v. Raymond Tensing (Murder-police shooting), U.S. v. William Baroni Jr. and Bridget Anne Kelly (Public corruption-Bridgegate scandal), U.S. v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Boston Marathon bombing), Colorado v. Kobe Bryant (sexual
assault/rape), and U.S. v. Maj. Nidal Hasan (Capital court-martial, Fort Hood shooting), among others. Supplemental juror questionnaires from civil trials include In re Visa Check/Mastermoney Antitrust Litigation (Antitrust), Earl Washington Jr. v. Kenneth Buraker et al. (Violation of civil rights), In re Exxon Valdez (Environmental damage from oil spill), i4i LP v. Microsoft Corporation (Patent), Texas v. American Tobacco Company et al. (Tobacco product liability), and David Mueller v. Taylor Swift et al. (Tortious interference with a contract/assault and battery), among others.
Praise for Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection: Supplemental Juror Questionnaires
"Kudos to Dr. Jeffrey Frederick for this companion book to his Mastering Voir Dire and Jury Selection, 4th edition. He's assembled the most comprehensive collection of Supplemental Juror Questionnaires to date. It's not only useful for those who want to learn how to fashion the best questionnaire possible for their case, it's also fascinating to look at the various approaches that have been used over the years. . . . Dr. Frederick's insights about how to write a good Supplemental Questionnaire are, as always, thoughtful and to the point. In fact, most of the authors of these questionnaires (and the judges who ultimately approved the questionnaires) would have done well to follow his suggestions."
-Diane Wiley, President, National Jury Project/NJP Litigation Consulting//Midwest. Co-editor Jurywork: Systematic Techniques.
"[This book] is a must have resource for lawyers skilled in the art of persuasion and for the less experienced trial lawyer looking for help in preparing to conduct a successful voir dire. Frederick takes the reader through the process of developing questions and explains how the design of the questionnaire can set jurors' expectations and prepare them to disclose information and express their viewpoints during voir dire. The book is a compendium of juror questionnaires developed and successfully used by criminal and civil trial lawyers throughout the country. It is an essential tool for lawyers seeking to identify potential jurors who harbor critical biases and prejudices against their clients and keep them off the jury."
-Nina J. Ginsberg, criminal defense attorney, DiMuroGinsberg, PC, Alexandria, Virginia
