The study sample included 12 trials and 123 jurors in Trinidad and Tobago. Four upper class jurors and six middle class jurors were chosen as forepersons in the 12 trials. In investigating why this phenomenon occurred, the focus was on psychological processes involved in juror selection of forepersons. The fact that foreperson selections were made by jurors and not imposed upon them carried added significance in terms of the self-perpetuating nature of social stratification. Whether choices arose from intuition or the subconscious, it was to the credit of jurors that they most frequently chose someone from the jury group who had some capacity to serve as foreperson. Jurors appeared to have the psychological capacity to make the right choice, demonstrating a subconscious mechanism of social selection. Nonetheless, jurors often could not clearly say why they preferred the individual they chose to be foreperson; they were not able to identify body language and other features of deportment as causative factors in foreperson selection. 21 references