The summons and the pool
A criminal jury trial starts long before the courtroom. A court sends summonses to people drawn from a list, and the people who answer make up the pool from which a jury is picked. Who sends the summons, which list the names come from, and what it asks of you are set by each state's own law. Each chapter's summons card states them for its jurisdiction.
Selection
From the pool, a smaller group is called into the courtroom and questioned. The judge and the lawyers ask about the person's background, their connection to the case, and their views. This questioning is called voir dire. A person can be excused for a reason the law recognises, and each side can also excuse a limited number without giving a reason.
Which reasons count? How many excuses does each side get? Are a person's views about the law itself a ground for excusing them? Those are the questions the chapter answers for your state.
The evidence and the instructions
The trial itself is the part most people picture: witnesses, exhibits, the prosecution's case and the defense's. At its end comes the step this guide is about. The judge reads the jury its instructions: what the charge requires, what the prosecution must prove, and how the jurors are to decide. Most jurisdictions have a standard instruction on who decides the law and who decides the facts. Of the 52 this guide covers, 49 have one. The words differ by state, and they are in the chapter.
The jury room
The jurors go out and deliberate alone. What is said there stays there, by rules that differ in their details from state to state. Whether a juror can ask for the instructions again, how a question to the judge is handled, and what happens if a juror will not join the others are all governed by rules the chapter sets out.
The verdict, or no verdict
A jury returns a verdict when enough of its members agree. 51 of the 52 jurisdictions require every juror to agree in a criminal case. When they cannot agree, the jury is hung, and the judge decides what happens next: more deliberation, a further instruction, or a mistrial. How many jurors sit, what counts as agreement, and what a judge may do with a jury that cannot agree are three of the questions every chapter answers for its jurisdiction.