How Are People Selected to Be on a Jury?

People are selected for a jury in stages: a court’s computer randomly pulls names from public records to build a large pool, the court mails those people a summons and a qualification form to screen out anyone who doesn’t meet the legal requirements or has a valid reason to be excused, and the remaining group is called to the courthouse where the judge and attorneys question them and choose the final panel. That, in outline, is how people are selected to be on a jury in the federal system. Each stage has its own rules, and understanding them tells you what to expect if your name comes up.

How Your Name Gets Into the Pool

Every federal court keeps a “master jury wheel,” a database of names drawn from public records inside the court’s geographic district. The Jury Selection and Service Act requires that the pool represent a fair cross-section of the community.¹ All federal courts start with voter registration lists, and when voter rolls alone don’t capture a broad enough slice of the population, courts add other sources such as driver’s license records.²

Combining lists matters because no single database includes everyone. A person who never registered to vote might still hold a driver’s license. Once the merged list exists, a randomized computer draw pulls names so every person in the district has a roughly equal chance of being called.

The Summons and Qualification Form

When your name is drawn, the court mails you a summons along with a juror qualification form. The form asks basic questions to determine whether you meet the legal requirements under 28 U.S.C. § 1865. You qualify if you:

Are a U.S. citizen at least 18 years old.
Have lived in the judicial district for at least one year.
Can read, write, and speak English well enough to follow proceedings and complete the form.
Are mentally and physically able to serve.
Have no pending charge for a crime punishable by more than a year in prison, and no conviction for such a crime unless your civil rights have been restored.

The criminal-record provision is the only automatic disqualification in the federal statute.³ If you meet the other criteria, your name goes into the “qualified jury wheel” for potential assignment to a trial or grand jury panel.⁴

Disqualification, Exemption, and Excuse Are Three Different Things

People often use these terms interchangeably. The federal statute treats them as separate categories, and the difference determines whether you can walk away or have to ask permission.

Disqualification

Disqualification is automatic and comes from the criminal-record rule described above. If it applies, you cannot serve.³

Exemption

Exempt individuals have the legal right to decline service if they choose. Under federal law, exempt groups include active-duty military members, state and local police and fire personnel, and public officers actively performing official duties in any branch of government.⁵ Volunteer firefighters and rescue squad members can also request an exemption. Exempt people aren’t barred from serving; they can opt out.

Excuse for Hardship

If you don’t fall into an exempt category but serving would create a genuine hardship, you can ask the court to excuse you. Each federal district’s jury plan spells out what qualifies, and common grounds include a serious medical condition, being the primary caregiver for a young child or an elderly or disabled person, or extreme financial hardship. An excuse is not automatic. You submit a written request and the court decides.⁵

Voir Dire at the Courthouse

Once the court has a group of qualified, non-exempt jurors who haven’t been excused, those individuals are called to the courthouse for a specific trial. This group is called the venire. The final jury is selected from the venire through voir dire, a French phrase meaning “to speak the truth,” in which the judge and attorneys question each prospective juror.

The judge typically opens by describing the case in broad strokes: the type of charge or dispute, who the parties are, and roughly how long the trial is expected to last. Jurors are placed under oath and asked questions designed to surface anything that might keep them from being fair. Some questions are general, such as whether the juror or a close family member has been the victim of a similar crime. Others probe specific attitudes or experiences tied to the case.

Attorneys on both sides pay close attention. They listen to answers, watch body language, and form judgments about which jurors are likely to be sympathetic or hostile. Experienced trial lawyers treat voir dire as one of the most consequential parts of the case.

How Attorneys Remove Jurors

Based on what they learn during voir dire, attorneys use two types of challenges to remove prospective jurors.

Challenges for Cause

A challenge for cause asks the judge to remove a juror who has shown a clear inability to be impartial. A juror who personally knows the defendant, has already formed an opinion about the case, or has a financial interest in the outcome would typically be struck for cause. There is no limit on how many for-cause challenges each side can raise, but the judge must agree the bias is real.

Peremptory Challenges

Peremptory challenges let an attorney remove a juror without giving a reason. Each side gets a fixed number. In a standard federal felony case, the defense gets ten and the prosecution gets six.⁶

There is one significant limit. In Batson v. Kentucky (1986), the Supreme Court held that using peremptory challenges to exclude jurors because of race violates the Equal Protection Clause, and the Court later extended that prohibition to gender-based strikes in J.E.B. v. Alabama (1994).⁷ If the opposing side suspects a strike was motivated by race or gender, it can raise a Batson challenge. The attorney who made the strike then has to offer a neutral explanation, and the judge decides whether the real motivation was discriminatory.

Alternates and Seating the Jury

Courts don’t seat the minimum number of jurors and hope nobody gets sick. In federal cases, the judge can seat up to six alternates who sit through the entire trial alongside the regular panel. If a juror becomes ill, has a family emergency, or is disqualified mid-trial, an alternate steps in with full authority. When an alternate replaces a juror after deliberations have started, the judge instructs the jury to begin deliberations from scratch.⁶

The challenge-and-replacement process continues until all juror and alternate seats are filled. At that point, the selected jurors are sworn in and the trial begins.

How Many Jurors End Up on the Panel

Federal criminal trials use 12 jurors, and the verdict must be unanimous. Federal civil trials are more flexible: the jury must start with at least 6 and no more than 12 members, and the verdict must be unanimous unless the parties agree otherwise.⁸ State courts follow their own rules, and many use smaller panels, especially for misdemeanors and civil cases, though 12-member juries remain standard for serious criminal charges in most jurisdictions.

Grand Jury Selection Is Different

Everything above describes petit juries, the trial juries that hear evidence and deliver a verdict. Grand juries do something else: they review evidence from a prosecutor and decide whether to formally charge someone. Grand jurors come from the same qualified jury wheel, but a federal grand juror serves for up to 18 months, with a possible 6-month extension, and considers many cases over that term.⁹ So if your summons is for a grand jury, the selection screening looks similar but the commitment is not.

What Happens If You Ignore the Summons

A jury summons is a court order. If you don’t respond or fail to show up, the court will issue an order requiring you to appear and explain yourself. If you can’t demonstrate a good reason, the penalties under federal law include a fine of up to $1,000, up to three days in jail, community service, or any combination of the three. The same penalties apply if you lie on the qualification form to get out of serving.¹⁰

In practice, courts often send a follow-up letter before escalating, and people who respond promptly after missing the initial deadline frequently face no penalty. Counting on leniency is still a bad bet. If you can’t serve on the assigned date, the safer move is to ask for a postponement or an excuse in writing rather than skip.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1861 – Declaration of Policy
2
United States Courts. Juror Selection Process
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1865 – Qualifications for Jury Service
4
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1866 – Selection and Summoning of Jury Panels
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1863 – Plan for Random Jury Selection
6
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 24 – Trial Jurors
7
Legal Information Institute. J.E.B. v. Alabama Ex Rel. T.B.
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 48 – Number of Jurors, Verdict, Polling
9
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 6 – The Grand Jury
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 1864 – Drawing of Names From the Master Jury Wheel