If you or a friend or relative would like to discuss a potential medical malpractice claim please contact Steven F. Reilly at 610-272-7075 or sreilly@reillylawpc.com.

Selecting a Jury in a Philadelphia Medical Malpractice Case



Clients are often confused about the process of selecting a jury for a trial in Philadelphia County. The process though appearing to be confusing at first is fairly straight forward. To begin, virtually all medical malpractice cases require the selection of fourteen (14) jurors consisting of twelve (12) jurors and two (2) alternate jurors. The two (2) alternates would serve as a replacement to any juror who was dismissed.
Generally, a panel of forty (40) prospective jurors is brought to the court room and each person is assigned a number from 1-40. Prior to arriving in the courtroom the prospective jurors fill out a two (2) page form asking for some basic information (name, occupation, and section of the city from which the prospective juror resides). Additionally, the form asks several questions about prior jury service, involvement in a lawsuit or whether the juror would have difficulty following the Court's instructions. After the attorneys review the forms each attorney will ask the entire panel some general questions to determine whether anyone knows any of the parties or witnesses to the case.
After the general questions are asked the attorneys are moved to a private room not in open court where they get to ask follow-up questions to the prospective jurors individually. The questions are designed to determine whether a prospective juror can be fair and impartial. For example, in a medical malpractice case it is important to determine whether prospective jurors have any pre-conceived notions either for or against the medical provider. In the current environment where physicians and hospitals frequently distribute propaganda about the Medical Malpractice Crisis it is important to determine whether a prospective juror had received such information and if so would it affect their ability to be fair.
If it appears that a person could not be fair or could not sit on the jury to due to medical, employment or hardship reason then the prospective juror may be stricken from the panel for cause. The goal of the questioning process is to get the panel down to first twenty- two (22) prospective jurors. Once the panel is at twenty -two (22) the process is almost complete. From the twenty- two (22) the plaintiff must strike (remove) four panel members and the defense must strike (remove) four (4) panel members (in the case of multiple defendants, the defendants share the strikes). The process of striking the last eight (8) panel members is called preemptory challenges. The plaintiff uses the first preemptory strike then the defendant uses a strike and the process continues to alternate until the panel is down to fourteen (14). In numerical order the first twelve (12) are the jurors and the last two (2) are the alternates. The jury is then sworn in and the trial begins.
If you or a friend or relative would like to discuss a potential malpractice claim please feel free to contact Steven Reilly at 610-272-7075 or sreilly@reillylawpc.com. The consultation and investigation are at no cost to the client and I only take a fee (a percentage of the recovery) if there is a recovery. Please feel free to call or contact me with any questions.

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