High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Scientific jury selection, often abbreviated SJS, is the use of social science techniques and expertise to choose favorable juries during a criminal or civil trial. Scientific jury selection is used during the jury selection phase of the trial — when lawyers have the opportunity to question jurors and they and the judge choose which people will be on the jury. It almost always entails an expert`s assistance in the attorney`s use of peremptory challenges — the right to reject a certain number of potential jurors without stating a reason — during jury selection. The practice is currently confined to the American legal system.