Regrettably, many trial courts are now limiting voir dire time during jury selection. Accordingly, it becomes more difficult to detect those jurors who have biases and prejudices that might affect the outcome of your client's case. Using the Scale of Opinion trial graphics board, defense counsel can ask one question to the panel as a whole and get a quick response from each juror on how they answer that question. The board is designed to show biases and prejudices, both strong and weak. For example, counsel might ask the following question:
"Some people say that we should automatically accept what the breath test machine tells us while others say we should not. We need you to tell us what is your personal opinion about whether or not the breath test machine is telling the truth. Do you lean towards believing the machine is accurate and reliable or do you lean away from it as being inaccurate and unreliable?
Asking the panel the question this way, each juror can give machine gun type responses and tell you exactly where their opinion lies, strongly to, to, slightly to, neutral, slightly away, away, strongly away. The key to using the Scale of Opinion is to pre-think your questions before voir dire. Using pre-thought out questions and the trial graphics, defense counsel can cover a lot of ground quickly and effectively.