Bill > H2150

This bill, titled "Relative to court proceedings," proposes changes to how juries are selected in both criminal and civil trials. Specifically, it amends Section 28 of Chapter 234 of the General Laws to allow parties or their attorneys to conduct oral examinations of potential jurors, known as the jury venire, in addition to the examination conducted by the judge. This process, called jury voir dire, is used to identify and remove potential jurors who may be biased. The bill states that the court can set reasonable limits on the questions asked and grant additional time for this examination at its discretion. In criminal cases with multiple defendants, the prosecution (referred to as the Commonwealth) will receive the same amount of examination time as all the defendants combined. Importantly, this bill does not alter the number of peremptory challenges, which are a limited number of challenges that allow parties to remove potential jurors without stating a reason.