ipl-logo

Summary: Choosing Jury In Death Penalty Cases

815 Words4 Pages

Death Qualification: Choosing Jury in Death Penalty Cases
Death qualification is a process unique to capital trials in which prospective jurors are questioned about their beliefs regarding the death penalty. Courts can eliminate potential jurors who are not willing to vote for the death penalty in a capital case. If the judge believes that a juror 's feelings about the death penalty would impair his or her ability to judge the case and choose the punishment fairly, that juror will be dismissed "for cause." There is an unlimited number of "for cause" challenges and typically all jurors who say that they oppose the death penalty are excluded. Jurors who are not eliminated by the judge "for cause" because of their death penalty views can be eliminated …show more content…

Illinois (1968). The Supreme Court held that prospective jurors could not be disqualified from jury service simply because they voiced general objections to the death penalty or expressed conscientious or religious scruples against it. However, a state may exclude those jurors who would automatically vote against the death penalty or those jurors whose attitudes about the death penalty would affect their decision regarding the defendant’s guilt or innocence.
Wainwright v. Witt (1985). The Supreme Court replaced the death qualification standards of Witherspoon with the standards of Wainwright v. Witt. The Witt standard gave more discretion to the judge in death qualification. The judge decides whether the jurors’ attitudes toward the death penalty would “prevent or substantially impair” their ability to decide on sentence fairly. This decision broadened the range of people who could be excluded by death …show more content…

As a result, capital juries tend to be whiter and more dominated by males than are juries in other cases. It has been suggested that as a result of this, capital juries are about 43% more likely to sentence a killer to die if his victim is white. Undeniably, capital juries show some racial disparities in their sentencing decisions. If juries in capital cases were not subject to death-qualification procedures, there is little reason to believe these racial disparities would survive. The solution, some might suggest, to minimize racial discrepancies in capital sentencing is to eliminate the ability of prosecutors to disqualify anyone with qualms about capital punishment from the jury pool. Jury selection in capital cases often takes weeks, if not months, as the “death qualified” jurors are isolated by the State. Numerous studies have shown that those who survive the death qualification process are inherently biased towards conviction. People who have no qualms about the death penalty favor the State. They would be more likely to convict in a jay-walking

Show More
Related
500 Words | 2 Pages

He also acknowledged that by allowing the content of a victim impact statement to influence the jury could lead them to choose the death penalty for reasons which were irrelevant to the defendant's decision to kill. This diverted attention from the facts of the crime. Justice Powell determined that by introducing the emotionally-charged opinions of family members into the case would destroy the reasoned decision-making. This is critical in capital cases. The major factor, in this case, argued if the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution protected a defendant from cruel and unusual punishment.

Read More
515 Words | 3 Pages

The Founding Fathers wanted the people of the United States to be in a democracy or self-government and established the jury system into the constitution. It is expensive and is a long process to start a jury trial. Also, jurors are not as professional as judges and can not determine a fair verdict. The Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) effect might also affect the verdict of the jury. The American jury system should not be used because of it not being cost-effective, the lack of experience of the jury, which leads to justice not being served, and the CSI effect impacting the

Read More
891 Words | 4 Pages

Anatomy of a Jury, written by Seymour Wishman, is a captivating murder mystery set in 1982 in Essex County, New Jersey located in a tension filled criminal court. Anatomy of a Jury is a nonfiction novel that employs the research conducted by the University of Chicago Jury Project to investigate into the grueling process of selecting a jury for the trial of a criminal case. This could sound as if we are indulging into a book with two different premises from a quick glance. That is Seymour Wishman’s point that he is trying to get at by doing so. Seymour Wishman, a renown criminal lawyer, wanted a chance to inform the public about the captivating institution of the jury selection in American courts, but needed a platform in which to do so.

Read More
211 Words | 1 Pages

In November 1978, Proposition 7 passed in California which created automatic appeals on death penalty cases, “cases in which the death penalty has been decreed are automatically reviewed by the California Supreme Court” (par. 19.). The automatic review created a system where every death sentence would be reviewed by the California Supreme Court. This is one cause of court delays in the appeal process. Scott Howe is a researcher at Chapman University School of law who investigated the severe backlog of cases to be heard by the courts. Howe observed that “death sentences have been generated in the trial courts at a much greater rate than they have been resolved on direct appeal” (1452).

Read More
460 Words | 2 Pages

Over 1,300 prospective jurors completed questionnaires for a chance to serve on a panel of jurors in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Boston Marathon Bombing trial. Of those prospective jurors, the judge presiding over the trial narrowed down the jury pool to just over 250 people through the process of voir dire. By personally interviewing each prospective juror individually, the judge is able to determine which of those jurors are the most qualified and competent to serve on a trial jury. The 250 jury prospects were eventually whittled down to a mere 18, 12 of whom sat on the jury panel for the duration of the trial and 6 of whom were alternates.

Read More
842 Words | 4 Pages

Another reason citizens question juries is that they have bias from personal experience or the media. The defendant and the prosecution criticize the jury system because the actual jurors may not understand the situation from any point of view because they come from different lifestyles (Doc E). The American jury system is not a good idea anymore because juries are not experts in law, they have bias, and are not “a jury of peers”. Because jurors are not experts in law, they are subject to be

Read More
1340 Words | 6 Pages

The role of the jury in capital cases Capital cases that include the death penalty are carefully analyzed and structured to allow the fairest due process. The selection of the jurors is one of the most crucial parts of the case. Attorneys and judges have to come to an agreement on who will serve on the jury before the case goes to trial. There have been many cases that have argued the selection of the jurors, for example, Uttecht v. Brown, Lockhart v. McCree, and many others. These cases have faced controversy due to the selection of jurors and have set precedents for new and present cases.

Read More
1145 Words | 5 Pages

Another issue that was discussed is the inequality of death penalty in practice. There have been serious issues with racial discrimination. For reference in cases with white victims and black defendants convictions occurred twenty two percent of the time while with black victims and white defendants with percentage dropped to a measly three

Read More
2057 Words | 9 Pages

(King 54) Whether or not a potential juror had intelligence or fair character was all opinion and

Read More
443 Words | 2 Pages

The jury system continued to evolve over a period of time and eventually the United States Constitution was written to govern the jury system. The Sixth and Seventh Amendments stated that we should have 12 members and the cases were to be resolved upon a unanimous verdict (Landsman & Holderman2010). In the 1970’s the court approved juries of 12 or fewer and a non-unanimous verdict in civil cases in federal court cases. Since the evolution of the judicial system it has become easier to get jurors to come to court to do their civil duty. A list is compiled of selected jurors from voter registration and driver’s license information from the state (United States Courts, n.d.).

Read More
902 Words | 4 Pages

Jurors can be good to have on a criminal trial as they are more sympathetic when making their verdict. It is recognised that judges can be out of touch with regular society as they are seen to have grown up with more money than the regular society. (Sydney criminal lawyers, 2014) This means that people have a misconception that Judges have not grown up with normal human experiences so they don’t feel as sympathetic. It is also mentioned that Judges only make their decision based on the legal aspects of the case and do not take anything else into account.

Read More
1232 Words | 5 Pages

These people are dangerous and don’t need big reason to kill someone.(This is an example of Prejudice too) Perception Discussion of elevated train (0:18:05) Could hear the argument (0:19:24) Discussion of lady's testimony (1:21:21) In all three situations Jurors organizes the information and translates it into something meaningful and comes to conclusion which results into making others to switch their vote from guilty to not guilty.. Representativeness heuristic "

Read More
779 Words | 4 Pages

Within the legal realm of the death penalty one clear proponent against the concept, the

Read More
1472 Words | 6 Pages

In this paragraph, the advantages and disadvantages of trial by jury will be discussed. The main advantages are that juries introduce community values into the legal process and can influence the system (Joyce, 2013); they can achieve a sense of equity and fairness without enforcing unjust laws; in addition, juries are independent and neutral (Davies, 2015). Moreover, they guarantee participation from the public in a democratic institution (Hostettler, 2004), and represent the population thanks to the randomness with which jurors are decided (Davies, 2015). On the other hand, the most important disadvantages are that jurors have no prior contact with the courts, no training (Hostettler, 2004) and therefore they lack knowledge of law, courtroom proceedings (Joyce, 2013), and lack of ability to understand the legal directions (Thomas, 2010). Moreover, they must face evidence which is highly technical (Hostettler, 2004).

Read More
809 Words | 4 Pages

10% of defendants sentenced to death volunteer for execution, but what about the people to sentence to die in prison. The death penalty should be a voluntary choice for all inmates/ defendants sentenced to life imprisonment, since sentencing a person to life without parole is civil death, rehabilitation is not an option for them, and many inmates prefer death over life sentences. Morality is the biggest decision maker when deciding whether to take another person’s life and will depend on the person you ask. The dilemma created from the death penalty would be utilized to assist an “inmate’s last wish”. Giving sentenced defendants the option to die counter the thought of it being a murder and closer towards assisted suicide.

Read More

More about Summary: Choosing Jury In Death Penalty Cases

Related Topics

Open Document