The issue of justice and judicial competency has always been one of the primary concerns for Americans in both legal and social aspects. From the very genesis of the US judicial system, the focus was placed on the Court’s impartiality and objectivity once criminal sentencing is concerned. As a result, the notion of the jury was introduced to the system, implying the social contribution to the decision-making process and preserving people from the Eighth Amendment violation. The following amendment is primarily concerned with the prohibition of imposing unfair punishment performed by the federal government (U.S. Const. amend. VIII). Thus, the significance of the jury’s participation is especially vivid in cases of capital punishment, as they are responsible for life deprivation.
Although the jury’s presence in the system is mostly perceived as a positive depiction of democracy in action, giving fellow citizens the chance to make a significant contribution to the national legislature and justice establishment. However, when it comes to the notion of a death-qualified jury, i.e., a jury that decides the adequacy of capital punishment, the very idea is rather questionable. Over the past decades, the issue has gained recognition due to juries’ explicit biased attitude to the decision-making process, especially when the matter concerns defendants of racial and ethnic minorities (Lynch & Haney, 2018). Thus, the juries who were chosen for the death penalty-related cases might not be the ones who prevent biases in the process and even explicit them either intentionally or on a subconscious level.
Moreover, researchers claim the death-qualified juries to be psychologically prone to suggest the death penalty as the main option (Yelderman et al., 2016). Hence, considering the aforementioned factors, it might be concluded that there is no qualitative data on how to prevent the issue of biased death-qualified juries. However, it is of crucial importance to introduce a meticulous system of choosing the juries who would be impartial towards the defendant.
References
Lynch, M., & Haney, C. (2018). Death qualification in Black and White: racialized decision making and death‐qualified juries. Law & Policy, 40(2), 148-171. U.S. Const. amend. VIII.
Yelderman, L. A., Miller, M. K., & Peoples, C. D. (2016). Capitalizing jurors: how death qualification relates to jury composition, jurors’ perceptions, and trial outcomes. In Advances in psychology and law (pp. 27-54). Springer, Cham.