Jury selection in the murder trial of former Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke began this week. Nearly four years after he fired 16 shots into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, and nearly three years after he was indicted for the on-duty shooting, Van Dyke’s attorneys and the special prosecutor have commenced the painstaking process of picking the 12 men and women who will evaluate his actions.
Diamond says that conducting voir dire interviews with each juror individually after the questionnaire, as Gaughan plans to do, is the right decision for a case like this too. “You don’t want to expose other jurors to answers [that could bias them]. . . . It takes a little more time, but it’s a good thing to do.” Indeed, given the size of the jury pool it could be more than a week before a jury is seated.
“I don’t think anybody could be completely objective, but our studies do show that jurors are in large measure influenced by the evidence,” she says. Her research has shown that being put in the position of carrying out such an important duty affects people’s behavior and thinking. “They kind of rise to the occasion. . . . People try to get out of jury duty but what we find is that once they are actually on a jury they take it seriously and they want to get it right.” She notes that the first question jurors typically ask a judge after a trial concludes is “Did we get it right?” Diamond also pointed to the example of a pro-Trump juror who recently voted to convict Paul Manafort on all charges. “The jury role is quite a compelling role that does modify what people do,” she said. “The setting makes people better.”
