Ladies and Gentlemen, today we have equal strikes in Georgia. It is truly a monumental occasion as Georgia has finally given the victims of crime even footing with criminals when it comes to jury selection. As you know, a new day has dawned in Georgia. The Republican revolution has captured the Statehouse. Our own Sonny Perdue, in an address to Georgia district attorneys last winter, outlined his legislative package which included equal strikes for victims. The Republican led Senate and House made passage of that bill a priority. And once it was passed, the Governor signed equal strikes into law.
Effective July 1, the defense gets nine strikes and the State gets nine strikes. Now that's equal. The procedure is that the court creates a pool of 30 qualified jurors. From there, the attorneys get to ask questions of the jurors. Once that is finished, the juror seating chart is passed back and forth and the jurors are "de-selected" from serving on the pool. It's not really the case that a juror is selected for a jury as much as they are left on the jury as the party's strike the ones they don't want. The end result is that you have 12 jurors remaining to serve on the jury. If an alternate is needed, three additional jurors are added to the pool and each side strikes one, leaving an alternate.
While some people believe comedian Norm Crosby's statement: "When you go into court, you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty," I am confident that the good folks of Houston County are willing participants in our jury system. It's because of the caring and knowledgeable citizens of this community that our county is the great place that it is. Now, with equal strikes, the victims have an equal voice with the defendants when it comes to getting that jury seated.
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