Is it realistically possible to find an impartial jury for cases involving well-known suspects?
They may not enter the room impartial, but people do, usually, take jury duty very seriously. I’ve been on a couple of juries and one thing I learned from these experiences is that a jury foreman has a lot to do with how the jury looks at a case. The foreman on one jury I served on said “we are looking at facts, not personalities” and kept the conversations from going off on tangents about the pasts, attitudes and like-ability of the defendants and the victims. They weren’t famous, but in this case the victim was really a nasty customer and the defendant seemed pleasant. It is possible to render an impartial decision. As long as 1 person on the jury keeps the focus on the facts of the case and the pertinent laws, a jury as a group is capable of an impartial decision.
I think it’s not realistically possible to find an impartial jury for any case, let alone for cases involving well-known suspects. But this is actually what juries are like. They are by definition partial as they are members of society. Being well-known in society doesn’t come cheap. One day we may end up before a heavily partial jury.
