Answer the following questions in essay form (minimum 50 words each).

1. What is voir dire? Why is it important to jury selection?
2. Answer questions in #3 from Exercise 1-1.
3. Answer the questions from Exercise 1-4.

Exercise 1-1

1. Suppose that you are the attorney for the defense, and your client is a 30-year-old black man who
works as a tax accountant for Dow Chemical. He has been accused of assaulting a man in a tavern;
he claims that he was defending himself from attack by a drunken and aggressive patron of the bar
(a 60-year-old white bricklayer). What questions would you ask potential jurors during voir dire? (Be
sure that you phrase the questions in such a way as to get genuine answers.)

2. You are the district attorney, and you are prosecuting a case in which a man—the president of a
small business—is accused of assault and attempted rape. His secretary made the charges, claiming
that the man assaulted her and attempted to rape her one evening when they were working late in
the office. What questions would you ask potential jurors during voir dire? What questions would
you ask if you were attorney for the defense?

3. In the two cases above, do you think you would be a fair and open-minded juror? If you were those
defendants, would you be satisfied to have someone like yourself seated on the jury

Exercise 1-4

1. Lawrence Kohlberg was a twentieth-century psychologist who conducted research on moral
development, tracking the developmental stages of moral development in a large group of children
in the Boston area, following them from their early years (some as young as 7) well into
adulthood. In his studies Kohlberg often posed moral dilemmas to his subjects, and asked what
they would do and why. One such dilemma was the story of Heinz: A man named Heinz has a wife
who needs a drug to save her life, but Heinz cannot afford to buy the drug from the druggist, and
the druggist will not give Heinz the drug. Should Heinz steal the drug for his wife? When confronted
with this dilemma, some of the subjects thought about it, then gave an answer: Heinz
should steal the drug, or he should not. But others wanted more information before deliberating
about the case: Had Heinz attempted to negotiate with the druggist? What sort of person was the
druggist? Wasn’t the druggist concerned about saving the life of Heinz’s wife? What was the
relationship between Heinz and his wife? Does the demand for more detail correspond to an inclination
toward one or the other style of critical thinking? That is, would those taking a cooperative approach
to this dilemma be more likely to ask for more details than would adversarial critical
thinkers? Or vice versa? Or would the style of critical thinking make no difference to the amount
of detail desired?