The Ultimate Juror is an educational and fun activity about jury selection and jury verdicts. You can either represent the Prosecution of the Defence (accused). From the jury pool presented you should aim to pick the jurors most likely to favour the party you represent.
The aim of the game is to win the case for the party that you represent. Select a case from a large number of cases that are available to you. Then go to court where the jury panel will be selected. A jury pool will be randomly allocated from a large and varied jury population. Each side must reject 6 jurors by challenging (Defence) or standing aside (Prosecution). For the purpose of this game the opposing side rejects are randomly selected. Once the jury panel of 12 jurors is selected you will proceed to trial for the case arguments before the jury reveals it’s verdict.
A ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not Guilty’ verdict must be unanimous. The verdict for a case is calculated based on the case evidence, defendant factors and jury member factors.
To make things interesting there are wild card jurors and wild card evidence that can impact the verdict. A wildcard juror is likely to vote on a verdict that is the opposite to what is calculated except where there is an extremely strong case against the accused. A verdict score is calculated for each juror to determine their guilty or non-guilty decision. A case may have wildcard evidence by the Defence and/or Prosecution that can have a big impact on the juror decision. A wildcard juror may occur often however wildcard evidence is infrequent.
If there is a hung jury you can return the jury to reconsider their verdict. Jurors who are likely to change their mind will change their vote if the majority vote is different to what they voted. This may result in a unanimous verdict being reached.
Most adversary jury systems throughout the world are based on a similar structure although they may use different terminology, may be used for different offences and may have a different number of jurors. This game is based on the Victorian Judicial System in Australia whereby indictable offences are heard in a court with 12 jurors. However the game rules are relevant for most jury based court systems.
The Ultimate Juror is a fantastic educational tool for legal study students. Students can learn about the jury process and debate what would have led to the verdict for each case and can consider what type of evidence could impact the verdict, keeping in mind the innocent until proven guilty premise. When wildcase evidence is involved, students can consider the types of evidence that may change the result of a case. Tampering of evidence or errors in police proceedings may prevent a guilty verdict. A victim may not be prepared to recount humiliating and horrific events. For the prosecution an unexpected witness or new evidence may come forward that may favour heavily towards a guilty verdict.