NCJ Number
152520
Journal
Journal of Social Issues Volume: 50 Issue: 2 Dated: special issue (Summer 1994) Pages: 103-124
Date Published
1994
Length
22 pages
Annotation
The authors consider whether capriciousness and/or bias play an undue role in capital trials and explore the potential for inequity with regard to jury selection, verdicts, and penalty determination.
Abstract
Bias and arbitrariness appear to be widespread in the capital trial, in part because the legal system assumes the jury is passive and ignores the fact that jurors interpret their courtroom experience and give it meaning. Further, available data suggest that juries are likely to be nudged toward believing the defendant is guilty and toward imposing the death penalty. Prospective jurors are asked about their attitudes toward the death penalty, a process known as death qualification. Not only may the process of death qualification influence jurors toward viewing the defendant as guilty and deserving of death, but death qualification typically precludes jurors with strong opposition to the death penalty from serving on a capital trial. Attitudinal and personality data suggest that jurors who favor the death penalty may be more likely to convict a defendant than those strongly opposed to the death penalty. Apart from the issue of death qualification is the fact that voir dire is often conducted in a way that fails to uncover important biases in potential jurors. In the penalty phase of a capital trial, biases may arise in connection with race, victim impact evidence, sentencing instructions, life sentences, and parole. Jurors need to be informed about what will happen if they cannot agree on a penalty and should not be influenced by illegitimate social pressures to research their decisions. Rectifying some inequities in the capital trial can be accomplished with relative ease, while reducing or eliminating other biases is more difficult. As long as the death penalty remains in effect, regardless of individual views on its legality or morality, efforts should be made to eliminate arbitrariness and bias in its application. 62 references