Not true. I sat on a jury once. Neither the prosecutor nor the defense attorney did a very good job on voir dire. Either one could have probably gotten me stricken for cause. Hate to think of how bad the pool was that neither side wanted me off. I considered the experience to be worth far more than any CLE course I’ve attended.
He got struck the first time because I was clerking for a federal judge known locally as "Maximum" not only because he always gave the maximum sentence (back in the days before grids) but because he was 6'5" and probably 350 pounds on a skinny day. Prosecutor asked the "does your wife work outside the home" series of questions, and when the name of my employer came up, the prosecutor said, "No further questions, he's acceptable to us," and the defense attorney (who hubby said had turned pale) said, "Get him out of here before he contaminates the others."
But the second time he was called the defense attorney was not about to waste his credibility on a lengthy voir dire - judge said, "This is the case of the State versus Tony Austin. Stand up Tony." Tony stood up. "Sit down Tony." Tony sat down. He had robbed a 7-11, tried to run over a policeman in the parking lot, led police on a high speed chase, wrecked his car, and was found unconscious in the driver's seat with the gun and the money beside him in a plastic bag. He didn't want to plead, and the defense attorney just took the first 12 jurors.
They went back in the jury room, came out about 20 minutes later and everybody was gone. Judge informed the jury that Tony had pleaded guilty as soon as he eyeballed his jury . . . "we dropped the charge of trying to run over the policeman, but I gave him just as much time." Judge later went on to be a Supreme Court Justice. No nonsense fellow, I liked him a lot.