Question – Jury Questionnaire

My cousin received a jury summons in the mail for district court. The jury questionnaire had all of the basic questions, except at the top, typed in (with a typewriter not computer generated like the rest) it had:

* Please Indicate Religious Preference_________________________

It said directly above this question:

The following “Juror Questionnaire” is mandated by government code, section 62.0132.

I looked up government code 62.0132 on Texas Online and it states:

§ 62.0132. WRITTEN JURY SUMMONS
QUESTIONNAIRE.
(a) The Office of Court Administration of the
Texas Judicial System shall develop and maintain a questionnaire to
accompany a written jury summons.

(b) A written jury summons must include a copy of the
questionnaire developed under this section.

(c) The questionnaire must require a person to provide
biographical and demographic information that is relevant to
service as a jury member, including the person's:
(1) name, sex, race, and age;
(2) residence address and mailing address;
(3) education level, occupation, and place of
employment;
(4) marital status and the name, occupation, and place
of employment of the person's spouse; and
(5) citizenship status and county of residence.

(d) A person who has received a written jury summons and a
written jury summons questionnaire shall complete and submit the
questionnaire when the person reports for jury duty.

(e) In developing and maintaining the questionnaire
required by this section, the Office of Court Administration of the
Texas Judicial System shall solicit and consider the opinions of
the members of the judiciary, district clerks, and attorneys.

(f) Except as provided by Subsection (g), information
contained in a completed questionnaire is confidential and is not
subject to Chapter 552.

(g) The information contained in a completed questionnaire
may be disclosed to:
(1) a judge assigned to hear a cause of action in which
the respondent to the questionnaire is a potential juror;
(2) court personnel; and
(3) a litigant and a litigant's attorney in a cause of
action in which the respondent to the questionnaire is a potential
juror.

Added by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 539, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.

I saw nothing about Religious Preference. Can someone tell me if this is a legal question?

religion specifically opposed to the Death penalty, the prosecutor would have an argument. I'd fill it with "separation of Church and state" for religious preference. What are they gonna do if you don't understand the question.

and my father also said he got the same jury questionnaire about a year ago and the case was about breaking and entering...

I'd have run with "Nunya", which on second thought isn't nearly as good as "separation of church and state".

... requires (c)1-5 at a minimum. It doesn't exclude additional biographical information to be provided.

It's quite possible that there is a case coming up in the time frame covered by the summons that has a religious component, in which case, the lawyers in the case might want that information to determine any bias.

Cheers.

a recent case I got called to jury duty for, was a conflict between a Sunni family and a Shiite family, that led to physical violence.

There was no questionnaire - I think this was intentional as 95% of the jury pool would probably have been disqualified had salient questions been asked in a questionnaire. As it was, it took two jury pools to select a jury.

If the case has to do with religion or expression of same in daily life, then maybe the question is salient and permissible??

voir dyer. I simply explained that I didn't believe in God (or god) and the Judge responded,"Are you a good and honest person and do you promise to tell the truth?" to which I said yes. The question was not allowed to have me struck from the jury although some number of jurors can be struck without explanation.

I've seen other jurors do the same.

If the case is big enought, the jury selection consultants will have a questionnaire for the jury to fill out that will ask the same question.

I either put "athiest" or "religious test not required". They never blink, but the only things I get called for are competency hearings. Never anything about right or wrong.

you could argue that because the religious preference question is above "the following jury questionnaire," it wasn't a part of the jury questionnaire & therefore you don't have to answer it. :evilgrin: However, I could be wrong & no, I don't have bail money.

What county is this from, btw?

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, my friend & I were called to jury duty on the same day. It was for a capital murder trial & they gave us a book to fill out. All kinds of weird questions & we noticed (since they were dumb & gave this to us do complete during lunch--we compared & contrasted answers the whole time) they asked the same thing several different times in different ways. But we also had to answer things like what our favorite tv shows were, what were the last 3 movies we saw, what music we listened to, what was the last book we read, etc.

dg

East Texas - bunch of nuts around here!

I'm wondering what would happen if my cousin just left it blank...

Jury duty isn't until June 6, so I guess I will find out then.

They can ask that question, just as they can inquire about race, sex, age, etc. for the purpose of obtaining information about juror candidates. They cannot, however, automatically strike a juror for religion or now can lawyers preemptively strike jurors based on this kind of information alone, as it constitutes discrimination. I don't know of any precedent based on the religion issue, but there does exist precedent on racial discrimination of jurors. I can only imagine that if this could be proven it would be deemed illegal by the courts.

get asked about it during the voir dire questioning. Second, religious beliefs might generally fall within the category of "biographical and demographic information that is relevant to service as a jury member" because some faiths (e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses) believe that their faith precludes judging others and that this (to some believers) may preclude jury service.