2.04.025 Jury selection for trial.
A. For each jury trial date during a court term, the court clerk shall select, at random, at least 12 persons from the term jury list who are able to serve at the time required.
B. At the time of trial, the prospective jurors shall be examined as to their qualifications, first by the defendant and then by the city. After they have been passed for cause, peremptory challenges, if any, shall be exercised, as provided in subsection C of this section. Each party may take challenges for cause and three peremptory challenges, unless the judge grants additional challenges. When two or more defendants are tried together, each must join in any challenge or it cannot be taken, unless the judge grants additional challenges.
C. Peremptory challenges shall be taken as follows:
1. The defendant may challenge one juror and the city may challenge one, alternating until the peremptory challenges are exhausted.
2. After each challenge, the panel shall be filled and the additional juror passed for cause before another peremptory challenge is exercised. Neither party shall be required to exercise a peremptory challenge unless the full number of jurors is in the jury box at the time.
3. The refusal to challenge by either party in order of alternation does not prevent the adverse party from exercising the party’s full number of challenges, and refusal of a party to exercise the party’s challenge in proper turn concludes the party as to the jurors once accepted by the party. If the party’s right of peremptory challenge is not exhausted, the party’s further challenges shall be confined, in the party’s proper turn, to such additional jurors as may be called.
D. If the peremptory challenges of the moving party are not already exhausted, the court may for good cause shown permit a challenge to be taken to any juror before the jury is complete and sworn, notwithstanding the juror challenged may have been previously accepted. [Ordinance No. 3517, 6/10/86; amended by Ordinance No. 4795, 12/1/20]