NCJ Number
182549
Journal
New York University Law Review Volume: 75 Issue: 1 Dated: April 2000 Pages: 26-73
Date Published
2000
Length
48 pages
Annotation
The prevailing wisdom claims that several features of the capital-trial penalty phase create emotional distance between jurors and defendants, which in turn increases the likelihood of a death sentence; this article examines this issue under the rubric of "the emotional economy of capital sentencing."
Abstract
The discussion is based on data collected as part of the Capital Jury Project (CJP), a nationwide effort to improve understanding of how jurors decide capital cases. CJP researchers asked jurors who sat on capital cases a wide range of questions, using a semistructured interview instrument. This essay focuses on the CJP's South Carolina segment, which has thus far yielded the most extensive set of data of all the States participating in the study. The data set encompasses interviews with 187 jurors in 53 cases tried in South Carolina between 1988 and 1997; 100 sat on one of the 28 cases that resulted in a death sentence, and 87 sat on one of the 25 cases that resulted in a sentence of life imprisonment. Findings show that jurors respond to the defendant with a wide range of emotions, but the dominant response is pity or sympathy, no matter what sentence the jury finally imposes. The prevailing academic wisdom is thus mistaken, inasmuch as it depicts capital jurors as devoid of any fellow-feeling toward the defendant. The prevailing wisdom has some validity, however, in that only one-fourth of the capital jurors actually imagined being in the situation of the defendant; empathy is a comparatively scarce commodity in the emotional economy of capital sentencing. Moreover, consistent with the prevailing wisdom, jurors who sympathize with the defendant do in fact appear less apt to vote for death than jurors who have no sympathetic feelings for the defendant. Capital jurors also experience less generous emotions, not least of which are anger, disgust, and fear. These emotions, which undermine empathy, arise largely from reaction to the defendant's crime and to the defendant as a person. 23 tables and 116 footnotes