Yes, it is your trial, but your Michigan DWI attorney may have many good reasons for not putting you on the stand. Either way, the jury selection process is key to making sure the decision does not end up alienating the jurors.

Preparing the Jurors

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The selection process can help your Michigan DWI attorney learn how the potential jurors feel about this issue. Some jurors have a knee jerk reaction that only guilty people do not want to testify. Others understand that there are plenty of good reasons that people do not testify. An experienced attorney can get a pretty good idea of which prospective jurors feel which way.

If you would not be testifying, the selection process also allows your attorney to educate the jurors about the many reasons an innocent defendant might still choose not to testify, starting with the obvious fact that there probably is a very good reason that the country founders decided not to require that defendants testify.

Demonstrating Fear of Public Speaking

Fear of public speaking is very common and something most jurors can understand. In fact, many of the potential jurors are probably experiencing that very fear during the selection process. Your Michigan DWI attorney can emphasize that by acknowledging his own nervousness, even after all his experience in a courtroom. Having set the stage, the attorney can follow up with specific questions that make the jurors focus on their own fears:

Michigan DWI attorney: Just now, when the judge asked you questions, did you get nervous at all?

Juror: Some, I guess.

Michigan DWI attorney: Really? They were just questions. What made you nervous? Juror: I am not really used to this; it is my first time in a court room. I suppose I did not want to say something, you know, wrong or inappropriate.

Having established that the potential juror really did get nervous, your attorney can shift focus directly to the prosecutor. For example, while pointing toward the prosecutor, the attorney asks: