Not a lawyer, but assuming the judge has enough latitude to pose a question without some sort of bias (meaning both sides agree), why not do it?

I just received my jury summons last Friday. I wish I could ask some questions, I’d "Judge Judy" their A**.

I served on jury duty about three years ago here in multnomah county. The judge let us ask questions in writing through the judge and I found it very helpful.

To be clear, the way this works:
1) A juror writes down a prospective question and passes it to the judge through his or her judicial assistant;
2) the judge reads it, and either decides that it won't be read, period, or to confer with the attorneys;
3) the judge confers with the attorneys, and they may have an argument about whether it should be read, and
4) the judge decides whether to read it.

It's a reasonably new process by the glacial standards of the law. But it generally gets good reviews. My firm hasn't had any jurors wanting to ask "when did you stop beating your wife?" questions.

heh, "when did you stop beating your wife!" I would imagine that most of the ordinary rules of evidence apply, i.e. when the jury in a criminal case wants to ask about prior convictions, and the accused has priors but isn't going to testify, the judge ain't gonna ask those questions.

Or so I'd imagine.