True/False Test on Juries Purpose: To elicit what audience members know or believe about juries Materials: Copies of quiz for audience members (Download the quiz as a .pdf) Ease of Presentation: Very easy. Distribute quiz and ask each member to complete. Take a vote on how each statement was regarded. Use the statements as points of discussion. Length of activity depends on amount of discussion generated. True/False Test on Juries 1. Over 90 percent of all cases never come before a jury. T F 2. Juries never impose sentences after reaching verdicts. T F 3. Women may because excluded from jury duty solely because of their sex. T F 4. A lawyer can keep someone from serving on a jury based on a hunch or for no reason at all. T F 5. It is constitutional for a lawyer to use peremptory challenges to keep members of certain races, as well as members of a particular gender, off of a jury. T F 6. All federal juries require unanimous votes. T F 7. Judges can be called for jury duty. T F 8. The Constitution guarantees you the right to a jury trial only in criminal cases. T F 9. States do not require unanimous verdicts in certain cases. T F 10. In most cases, judges and juries disagree on the verdict. T F Answers You can download the answers as a .pdf 1. True—Most cases are plea bargained, settled, or tried before a judge. 2. False—A number of states require jurors to pass sentence on those they have convicted of crimes punishable by death. 3. False—In Duren v. Missouri, a 1979 case, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a Missouri law allowing women automatic exemption from jury service, if women so requested, had deprived a murder defendant of his constitutional right to be tried by a jury composed of a cross section of the community. 4. True—Assuming that the lawyer in a case is entitled to use peremptory challenges to exclude prospective jurors from serving. These challenges do not require that a reason be given. 5. False—Beginning with Batson v. Kentucky in 1986, the Supreme Court has held, in a series of cases, that race- and gender-based peremptory challenges violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Such challenges cannot be used to exclude members of certain races or persons of a particular gender from service on a jury. Though lawyers generally do not have to give a reason for their peremptory challenges, if the opposing side objects to challenges as race- or gender-based, the side making the challenge must demonstrate a race- or gender-neutral basis for the challenges. 6. True 7. True—In some states, especially those using one-day/one-trial juries. 8. False—The Seventh Amendment provides for jury trials in civil cases. 9. True—Many states allow less than unanimous verdicts in certain civil cases, and some allow such verdicts in certain criminal cases. 10. False—Studies have shown they agree at least 80 percent of the time. This presentation (an outreach strategy based on a true-false quiz) is reprinted from an article by Julie Van Camp, "Courts at the Crossroads," that originally appeared in the ABA magazine Update on Law-Related Education. Lawyers & Judges | Judges' Chambers