Adeath-qualified jury is ajury in acriminal law case in theUnited States in which thedeath penalty is a prospectivesentence. Such a jury will be composed of jurors who:
The creation of such a jury requires the striking duringvoir dire of jurors who express opposition to the death penalty such that they are unable or unwilling to set aside personal, moral, or emotional objections toward the supporting of a death sentence, and is designed to produce afair and impartial jury of which the members will fairly consider all options, including the death penalty andlife imprisonment.
Expressing opposition to the death penalty does not automatically disqualify a juror. A party may attempt to rehabilitate the juror by asking questions as to whether, personal convictions notwithstanding, they might consider the death penalty. A juror who expresses exorbitant support for the death penalty who would thus otherwise be struck may be rehabilitated should they state a willingness to consider life imprisonment.
The use of a death-qualified jury was found to be consistent with theUnited States Constitution, most especially with theSixth Amendment thereto, by theSupreme Court of the United States inWitherspoon v. Illinois,[1] and inLockhart v. McCree;[2] neither decision, though, mandated the use of death-qualified juries as against those containing jurors categorically unwilling to impose a penalty of death. It is in view of theWitherspoon decision that the process of one's death-qualifying a jury is, in theUnited States, referred tocolloquially asWitherspooning a jury.
A poll commissioned by theDeath Penalty Information Center on June 9, 2007, showed 57% of Americans believed they would qualify to be jurors in capital cases.[3]
The bias imposed by the rule goes beyond the application of the death penalty itself. Several studies have found that death-qualified juries are made up of fewer women andminorities. Death-qualified juries are often criticized because they have a similar effect as excluding jurors based onrace orgender,[4] which intentional exclusion, inBatson v. Kentucky in 1986, was held as inconsistent with theEqual Protection Clause of theFourteenth Amendment.
Empirical evidence adduced inLockhart also has shown that death-qualified juries are more likely than other jurors toconvict a defendant.[5] That is, death-qualified jurors are more likely than non-death-qualified jurors to vote for conviction when assessing the same sets of facts. It is argued that since death-qualified juries overrepresent these groups there is a propensity to render guilty verdicts even on counts in which the death penalty is not considered.
