Journal Article

Disqualifying Death: Why Capital Abolitionists Should Look Back to Move Forward

Williams, Darryl E

2024

Overview

Death qualification-a process through which capital prosecutors may strike potential jurors based on their hesitancy to imposing a death sentence-lies at the heart of this problem. Because death-qualified juries tend to be less diverse and more prosecution-friendly, then vote to sentence defendants to death at a higher rate than would a jury that represented a true cross-section of society. In that case, the Court faced a state statute that gave prosecutors the authority to strike a juror for cause if they showed even the slightest hesitation toward imposing a death sentence.!® Using that authority, the prosecutor in Witherspoon struck nearly half of the jury pool based on hesitation about the death penalty.' The Supreme Court agreed. [...]the Court concluded general objections to the death penalty, standing alone, could not support a potential juror's removal. The Court, therefore, held that, although a juror's aversions to the death penalty may be relevant, exclusion based on \"any broader basis\" than a juror's unambiguously expressed inability to follow instructions and abide by their oath would violate the defendant's constitutional guarantees.?· Put differently, \"[t]he most that can be demanded from a [potential juror] in this regard is that [they] be willing to consider all penalties provided by state law.\"· In holding as it did, the Court necessarily believed the risk to a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights outweighed the risk to the government's interest.

• Publisher: Howard University, Howard Law Journal