Capital Jury Project

Jurors' Sentencing Dispositions

One of the main purposes of jury selection in death penalty cases is to ensure that citizens selected to serve can keep an open mind on punishment. The capital trial is bifurcated into guilt and sentencing hearings. The selection process in theory is meant to ferret out those jurors who are likely to prejudge the defendant without adequate consideration of both the facts of the case and, in the sentencing phase, the aggravating factors (i.e., factors that make the crime worse, such as multiple victims) and mitigating factors (i.e., factors that make the crime less severe, such as the defendant was abused as a child) in determining whether or not the defendant will live or die.

The CJP data demonstrate failures in the selection process in a number of important respects. First, a majority of jurors in the sample were found to have their minds made up on punishment before the sentencing phase of the trial had begun. Indeed, a significant number of jurors were “absolutely convinced” that the defendant deserved a death sentence at this point, unsurprisingly holding to that position and sentencing the defendant to death. One such juror described this early death [Page 92]decision “automatic.” In some cases, jurors who were undecided on the issue of guilt agreed to convict the defendant of capital murder on the condition that jurors predisposed to give the death penalty did not vote to impose it—a kind of “trade-off” that undermines the requirement that jurors are supposed to keep their punishment and guilt decisions separate.

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