Abstract
Death qualification may bias capital juries not only because it alters the composition of the group “qualified” to sit, but also because it exposes them to an unusual and suggestive legal process. This study examined some of the effects of that process. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in which they were exposed to standard criminalvoir dire that either included death qualification or did not. Subjects who were exposed to death qualification were significantly more conviction prone, more likely to believe that other trial participants thought the defendant was guilty, were more likely to sentence him to death, and believed that the law disapproves of death penalty opposition. Several psychological features of the death-qualification process are suggested to account for the biasing effects.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Asch, S. Forming impressions of personality.Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1946,41, 258–290.
Bronson, E. On the conviction proneness and representativeness of the death-qualified jury: An empirical study of Colorado veniremen,Colorado Law Review, 1970,42, 1–32.
Bronson, E. Does the exclusion of scrupled jurors in capital, cases make the jury more likely to convict? Some evidence from California,Woodrow Wilson Journal of Law, 1981,3, 11–34.
Carroll, J. The effect of imagining an event on expectations of the event: An interpretation in terms of the availability heuristic,Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1978,14, 88–96.
Cowan, C., Thompson, W., and Ellsworth, P. The effects of death qualification on jurors' predisposition to convict and on the quality of deliberation.Law and Human Behavior, 1984,8, 53–80.
Goldberg, F. Toward expansion ofWitherspoon: Capital scruples, jury bias, and the use of psychological presumptions in the law,Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 1970,5, 53–69.
O'Barr, W. and Conley, J. When a juror watches a lawyer,Barrister, 1976,3, 8–11.
Jones, E., and Goethals, G. Order effects in impression formation: Attribution context and the nature of the entity. In E. Jones, et al. (eds.)Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior. New Jersey: General Learning Press, 1971.
Jurow, G. New data on the effect of a “death qualified” jury on the guilt determination process,Harvard Law Review, 1971,84, 567–611.
Kadane, J. AfterHovey: A note taking account of the automatic death penalty jurors. This issue,Law and Human Behavior, 1984,8, 115–120.
Lewin, J. Group decision and social change. In Maccoby, E., Newcomb, T., and Hartley, E. (Eds.),Readings in Social Psychology. Third Edition. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1947, pp. 197–211.
Ross, L., Lepper, M., and Hubbard, M. Perseverance in self perception and social perception: Biased attributional processes in the debriefing paradigm,Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1975,32, 880–892.
Wolpe, J. and Lazarus, A.Behavior Therapy Techniques. London: Pergamon Press, 1967.
Zeisel, H.Some data on juror attitudes toward capital punishment. University of Chicago Law School: Center for Studies in Criminal Justice, 1968.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This research was supported in part by a faculty research grant from the University of California, Santa Cruz. I am extremely grateful to a number of persons without whom this study could not have been completed. Among them are Robert Altman, Cathy Bennett, Michael Berger, Jennifer Brown, Richard Cogan, Susan Evans, Margie Fargo, Samuel Gross, Elissa Krause, Darrin Lehman, Andi Longpre, and Douglas Sorenson.
About this article
Cite this article
Haney, C. On the selection of capital juries. Law Hum Behav 8, 121–132 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01044355
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01044355