A Custom Fit: Tailoring Texas Civil Jury Selection Procedures to Case Tiers

This Article, entitled A Custom Fit: Tailoring Texas Civil Jury Selection Procedures to Case Tiers, advocates for changes to current Texas state civil jury selection laws. The Article contends that Texas civil jury selection procedures would benefit from a tiered approach that provides different jury selection rules depending on the nature of the case, the complexity of the case, and the amount in controversy. Under current law, each party to a civil case receives six peremptory challenges in a state district court case. This is a large amount of peremptory challenges and has led to considerable Batson problems in Texas vis-à-vis other states, a lack of fairness to litigants and prospective jurors, and inefficiencies in the Texas civil jury selection system. See Davis v. Fisk Electric Co., 268 S.W.3d 508 (Tex. 2008). The Article calls for the elimination of peremptory challenges in Texas civil cases where the amount in controversy is low (relatively speaking); a presumption agai