From the Jury Room , the question is whether a older juror is more likely to vote for a conviction in a criminal case ? Unfortunately the answer is yes. A study was conducted in Florida in which 700 felony trials were analyzed . From the data , it appears that the elderly are more likely to convict a person of a crime . Here is a potion of the finding;

When the average age of the jury pool is greater than 50 years, there is a 79% conviction rate.

When the average age of the jury pool is less than 50 years, there is a conviction rate of only 68% (and yes, those differences are statistically significant).

 In other words, the older juror is more likely to convict. Conviction rates, say the authors, rise 1% with each year of increase in the average age of a jury. Specifically, “if a male defendant, completely by chance faces a jury pool that has an average age above 50, he is [snip] more likely to be convicted than if he faces a jury pool with an average age less than 50”.

I have known lawyers to select jurors on all  type of factors such as who listens to Rush Limbaugh or what type of bumper sticker you have on your care. I did not put much faith in these generalizations . The question is what fears do older jurors have . How do address those. Please keep in mind this information. Use it and deal with the data.  Remember to always deal with your danger points of your case. Now you just added one if your aggregate jury pool is over 50.

Thanks again to Keene Trial Consulting for the post.