| Death-qualified Jury |
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Information AboutDeath-qualified Jury |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT DEATH-QUALIFIED JURY | |
| capital punishment | |
| criminal procedure | |
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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, he 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 he state that he is willing openly to consider life imprisonment. The use of a death-qualified jury was found to be consistent with the ); 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 the ''Witherspoon'' decision that the process of one's death-qualifying a jury is, in the United States , referred to Colloquial ly as ''Witherspooning a jury''. BIAS Several studies have found that death-qualified juries are made up of fewer Women and Minorities . Death-qualified juries are often criticized because they have a similar effect as excluding jurors based on Race or Gender 1, which exclusion, in '' Batson V. Kentucky '' in 1986, was held as inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment . Empirical evidence adduced in ''Lockhart'' also has shown that death-qualified juries are more likely than other jurors to Convict a defendant.. 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 on cases of any type, including those in which the death penalty is not considered. REFERENCES |
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