Anatomy Of A Jury By Seymour Wishman

Anatomy of a Jury, written by Seymour Wishman, is a captivating murder mystery set in 1982 in Essex County, New Jersey located in a tension filled criminal court. Anatomy of a Jury is a nonfiction novel that employs the research conducted by the University of Chicago Jury Project to investigate into the grueling process of selecting a jury for the trial of a criminal case. This could sound as if we are indulging into a book with two different premises from a quick glance. That is Seymour Wishman’s point that he is trying to get at by doing so. Seymour Wishman, a renown criminal lawyer, wanted a chance to inform the public about the captivating institution of the jury selection in American courts, but needed a platform in which to do so. Knowing

Part One, titled “Who Shall Judge Me?” began following the police officer, who was the first to respond, to the scene of the crime. The scene he responds to turns out to be an unequivocally horrific murder of a young housewife and mother in their own home. After addressing the crime scene, Wishman pauses away for the first of numerous times to begin telling the story of the accurate legal steps that correspond to this crime. He depicts how a group of people are first summoned to appear as a juror, which is done by the prosecutor’s office sending out a large amount of prospective juror questionnaires. Everyone who receives a questionnaire must fill it out, or pay a monetary fine. The prosecutor’s office then reviews the questionnaires, and proceeds to issue summons for those prospective jurors who are qualified to serve. Unfortunately, this entire process could take months or even years in some

The initial twelve jurors are chosen at random by the county clerk, who picks slips of paper with the perspective jurors’ names at random. Once the twelve jurors are selected, the lawyers begin the process of molding the jury to whom they specifically want. In Anatomy of a Jury, the defense attorney, Mike Bernstein, and the prosecutor, Leslie Ryan, begin this process, which is called Voir-Dire. Here, the lawyers can ask the selected jury any question they desire to try and untangle whether jurors will find the defendant guilty or not guilty. Some Lawyers even bring in social scientists to help them figure out which way jurors will lean. The judge on the other hand, has a set list of questions they must ask the jurors. The only requirement for eliminating jurors during the Voir- Dire is that no juror can be excused based on race. The attorneys each have a set amount of preemptory excuses they can use as well, with which they can excuse jurors