Preemptory Challenges In Court Cases

To serve on a jury you have to be 18 years or older, be able to speak English, be able to read and write in the English language, be mentality sound, and some felony convictions. (Mulvaney, M. D., & Little Jr., J. A. 2015). In order to get on a jury panel, the prosecuting attorney, defense attorney, and judge start the dismissal process. Jurors can be excused from the jury panel by way of challenges. There are two challenges, challenges for cause and preemptory. In order to remove a juror for cause all parties must agree that the juror may be excused based on the existing court rules. Some jurors may have a hardship or family emergency that may prevent them from serving; this would qualify under the court rules as a reason for dismissal for cause.
Preemptory challenges can be used by either the defense or prosecution for any reason to dismiss a potential juror. Depending if it is a capital case or non capital case the number of preemptory challenges are limited between the two. The parties are allotted more preemptory challenges in capital cases vs non capital cases. Some restrictions to preemptory challenges exist and the attorneys cannot exercise preemptory challenges based on notion of race or sex. If the attorney is found to be engaged in illegal practice, then they can be subjected to a Batson challenge. (Mulvaney, M. D., & Little Jr., J. A.