Interactive · Educational
Twelve seats. A limited stack of strikes. A judge who makes you argue for every removal. This is voir dire — the questioning phase of jury selection — turned into a playable teaching model. Pick a side in a fictional armed-robbery case, question the pool, and learn the real difference between a challenge for cause, a peremptory strike, and the constitutional tripwire called a Batson challenge.
A simplified educational model. Not legal advice, not a prediction tool. Procedures vary by state and court. All jurors fictional.
The case State v. Rivera — armed robbery of a convenience store. Entirely fictional, deliberately unlike any case we cover. The defendant is presumed innocent; your job is only to seat a fair jury.
Six peremptories per side in this sim — real numbers vary by state and charge. Challenges for cause are unlimited, but the judge rules on each.
Prospective Juror #1
Demographics are visible in a real courtroom too — the law does not pretend lawyers can't see them. It forbids striking because of the protected ones.
On the record (3 questions left)
State your legal basis — cause is argued, not asserted:
Courtroom record
Jury seated
The Jury Chess Game — our free field guide to how lawyers really do this — goes deeper: the strike patterns, the questions that actually expose bias, and the moves this simplified model can only hint at.
Everything above is a compressed model of a process you can watch play out in real coverage. Two places to see it live: our True Crime Court Calendar tracks upcoming jury selections and hearings with sourced dates, and Anatomy of a Murder Trial walks a real conviction from jury selection to verdict.
The two-strike system is real: unlimited challenges for cause that a judge must grant, and a limited stack of peremptories that need no reason — bounded by Batson v. Kentucky (1986), which forbids striking jurors because of race or ethnicity, and J.E.B. v. Alabama (1994), which extended that protection to gender. Age and occupation are not Batson-protected classes, and the simulator reflects that line exactly.
Voir dire is the questioning phase of jury selection. Lawyers and the judge question the pool to uncover bias, hardship, and conflicts before deciding who sits. Jurors leave two ways: challenges for cause (unlimited, judge decides) and peremptory strikes (limited, no reason required — with constitutional exceptions).
A removal that requires no stated reason. Each side gets a limited number — the count varies by state and by the severity of the charge. The hard limit: peremptories may not be used to remove jurors because of race, ethnicity, or gender.
An objection that the other side is striking jurors in a discriminatory pattern. Under Batson v. Kentucky race and ethnicity are protected; J.E.B. v. Alabama extended protection to gender. The striking side must give a neutral reason, and a judge who finds pretext disallows the strike. Age and occupation are not protected classes under Batson.
A simplified educational model. Not legal advice, not a prediction tool. Procedures vary by state and court. All jurors fictional.