Venire in the United States

A list of persons summoned to serve as jurors for a particular district and period of time. The venire will provide the pool from which each trial jury will be chosen. Jury selection is a three-stage process with the selection of a venire from a master jury list being the middle step. Compilation of the master list and screening the jury pool for bias precede and succeed, respectively, creation of the venire. A venire must be randomly drawn from the master list. Prospective jurors making up the venire may be selected for service on a particular case for a period of time known as a term. Court officials know how many jury trials are scheduled during the term, and a venire large enough to provide jurors for all trials is created. Persons are then randomly drawn from the venire to provide jurors for a specific trial. Jurors not chosen remain in the venire and are available for trials of other cases scheduled during the term.

See Also

Jury (Criminal Process) Master Jury List (Criminal Process) Voir Dire (Criminal Process).

Analysis and Relevance

Those making up the venire are called to appear by summons. Everyone receiving a summons may not serve as a juror, however. Jurors must, for example, be residents of the locality in which the court summoning them has jurisdiction. Pre-screening normally occurs on such criteria as residency, citizenship, and age, and some prospective jurors will be excused because they do not meet these qualifying requirements. Other jurors will be excused because they are exempted by law. These exemptions are usually occupational categories such as teachers and medical personnel. These exemptions were initially established in a time when members of the venire could be selected to sit on more than one case during a term. This extended obligation created problems in certain professions, hence the exemption. Most jurisdictions currently require service for only one case, however. This limit minimizes the time any juror must serve and has prompted removal of most occupationally defined exemptions.

Notes and References

1. Definition of Venire from the American Law Dictionary, 1991, California

Venire Definition

(Lat. to come). The name of a writ (more commonly called venire facias) by which a jury is summoned.

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(Lat. to come). The name of a writ (more commonly called venire facias) by which a jury is summoned.

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This definition of Venire Is based on the The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary . This definition needs to be proofread..

See Also

See: Jury Panel in this Legal Encyclopedia
See: Jury Panel definition in the Law Dictionary

The Venire The Voir Dire Explained

References

See Also

• Jury System
• Trial Jury