Unless otherwise indicated, Judge Leichty will conduct voir dire. The parties must submit proposed questions the Thursday the week before trial (by noon ET) unless otherwise ordered. The parties should submit them in Word (not PDF) to chambers at leichty_chambers@innd.uscourts.gov. The court will email to counsel its proposed questions before this deadline, and the parties should accordingly not submit duplicative questions or those covered by the jury questionnaire.

For most cases, save particularly complex or long trials, Judge Leichty will seat 12 jurors and 2 alternates. Generally, 32-36 prospective jurors will be called as a venire, unless again the trial will be complex or lengthy. The parties will be given a random list of prospective juror names. Attorneys for the parties may review juror questionnaires in the clerk’s office after 12:00 p.m. (ET) one business day before trial commences.

Prospective jurors will be assigned numbers. Questioning will occur of the whole panel and individually as necessary. If, during the course of voir dire, Judge Leichty has reason to believe a venireperson will be subject to a cause challenge, or if the venireperson must discuss sensitive information to answer a question, the person will be brought to the bench for a sidebar discussion.

After the court’s questioning of the entire panel is completed, Judge Leichty will invite counsel to the bench and invite additional questions from counsel for the court to ask. Following questioning, the court will entertain challenges for cause directed to any panel member. Still at the bench, Judge Leichty will then tender for peremptory challenges the first twelve unchallenged persons on the random list. The court will invite peremptory challenges one at a time, alternating between the defendant and the government. Once both sides report no further peremptory challenges to the tendered group, those remaining in that tender will be deemed jurors, and the court will continue down the random list to tender the number necessary to bring the total of persons selected and tendered back to twelve for further challenge, and so on until the jury (with alternates) is selected.