Jury Panel

Alexis explains: "Generally, though, with misdemeanors and felony levels we're gonna be looking at having a jury trial. The main differences between misdemeanor and felony trials is that for a misdemeanor you're entitled to a panel of six jurists and for a felony you're entitled to a panel of 12."

Alexis explains: "in misdemeanor cases you are allowed a panel of six jurors. In a felony case you are allowed a panel of 12."

Alexis explains: "let's say you have an assault case, that's gonna go on a couple of days, a lot of the times the judges will allow an alternate juror to be placed with the jury as well. So you actually have 13 people sitting in the box but only 12 of them are gonna be jurors. The alternate is the person that, inevitably something always comes up when you have 12 different people, someone has child care issues, there's a death in the family someone's car breaks down and so you need to make sure that you have someone that can fill in for them if that happens, so that we don't have to do the whole process all over again."

Alexis explains: "let's say, for example, you have a minor traffic ticket in municipal court. You can qualify, a minor traffic ticket let's say a careless driving, you can qualify because you have the potential of going to jail from anywhere from 10 to 90 days according to the statue. So you do qualify for a jury trial. But jury trials in municipal court are a little bit different. You can only have three people on your jury panel at a municipal jury trial, or you can have what's called a bench trial and that's where the judge actually hears your case."

Alexis explains: "Peremptory challenges are interesting. Each side has a certain number. In felony cases usually each side has about six or so. Where each side gets to kick someone off the potential jury panel and doesn't have to say why. As long as it is not for a racial reason or a gender bias reason, you can't do it for those types of reasons but you can do it because you didn't like some answers that they gave or I've even seen lawyers say well that person was looking at me mean, so I'm gonna kick them off. There are all kinds of reasons lawyers use peremptory challenges but you go back and forth. So the DA gets to preempt someone off the jury and then the defense does and it goes back and forth back and forth until each has exercised all of their challenges and then whoever is left in the box are the happy, lucky winners of the jury selection process."

Alexis explains: "The main differences between misdemeanor and felony trials is that for a misdemeanor you're entitled to a panel of six jurists and for a felony you're entitled to a panel of 12."

Alexis explains: "With the voir dire process, or jury selection process, in misdemeanor cases you are allowed a panel of six jurors. In a felony case you are allowed a panel of 12. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the case, and depending on how long the case is gonna go, you'll actually get more than six or 12 people."