You have to support the death penalty to be on a juror for death penalty cases in some states?

I have MSNBC on right now, and they are talking right now about some case where some cop killed his wife. I normally turn this off when they talk about garbage like ths but Im on my computer. But I heard something very interesting. They said that they wouldn't allow anyone on the jury who does not support the death penalty. Is that constitutional? Is that fair? Does that mean that people who do not support the death penalty have no say in the justice system of certain states? Thats sick and not fair. Is it now a crime to be a moral person on a jury, or is having blood lust now a qualification to be a juror?

That has to get the reich wing riled up.

they support application of the death penalty in cases where allowed regardless of who the defendant is. Especially after a guilty finding.
Besides...I personally find the idea that he elbowed her in the neck while "pulling away" very intriguing.

so I'll kick this. I'm curious to know.

It makes sense, since jury may have to decide punishment in death penalty cases.

BTW, I am totally anti-death penalty.

It makes it so only a certain kind of person can be on a jury, andmakes it much easier for the state to present their case. It is not a "jury of your peers" because if you take a random 12 people, odds are at least one would not support the death penalty.

Rather than finding the person innocent solely on the basis of opposition to the law, death qualification allows fairness in favor of the State (i.e., they can find the defendant innocent if the State fails to make it's case, not just because the jury disagrees with the potential sentence)

Edited for a typo.

the power of jury nullification puts the merits of the law itself within the scope of your peers and is another barrier to authoritarian rule. End runs around 'a jury of your peers' like this are schemes to keep bad laws in power.

A jury of some of ones peers?

If they did not do this, you could almost never get the death penalty. (Which would be fine with me.)

if you are on a jury where the trial could result in a death penalty, you are not going to be accepted during voir dire if you are categorically agaisnt the death penalty- iow, not willing to impose it.

yes, it is constitutional

similarly, if the prosecution found out you didn't believe in laws against prostitution, you could be disqualified from a jury trial about prostitution

jurors are expected to apply the law, not their opinion about whether the law is fair

this, of course is not always the case (see: jury nullification), but it is how the system works.

that's why they voir dire juries, so the prosecution and defense can eliminate people with preconceived biases (for or agaisnt) issues in the case at hand

I was on a juror once, and he didnt ask my opinion on the death penalty...

It's a fine line, but in general: To be a juror, you have to be willing to apply the law. If the death penalty is a possibility in a given case, jurors have to be willing to apply it. (No, you can't be booted for being against the death penalty when the death penalty is not an issue in the case. If someone said that on TV, they're wrong.)

In theory, someone who says s/he'd automatically give the death penalty to someone convicted of murder should also get disqualified--they're not willing to apply the law correctly (because death-penalty statutes require careful consideration of many factors, not automatic application).

want you on the jury. I'm not sure how they go about finding out how you feel about it beyond a questionnaire. They may weed you out before hand or they may make the prosecutor do it when picking the jury.
If you have been the victim of a serious crime you are rarely used on a jury even if you have been called to jury duty. In that case usually the defense will weed you out. They also would rather not have cops on a jury either.


Edited to add- slow on the keyboard but you have better answers above.

If the state -has- the DP it would be counterproductive (from the prosecution's viewpoint) to allow someone who doesn't support it on the jury as it would nullify the potential administration of it. I'm not making any value judgment here just trying to explain it. ;-)

Which means that by making that rule, the boycott 40 percent of the country and make it so the jury is not a pure jury of the accused peers.

I would venture the accused (or guilty - pending on where in the trial system we are) would be anti-death penalty. So wouldn't the entire jury need to be made of anti-death penalty members?

The jury should never ever never be required to choose between a guilty or not guilty verdict solely based on their feelings about the sentence. Not ever, not even a little bit.

If a prosecutor proved beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant was guilty, I'd have no qualms about voting to convict.

If the same exact defendant was death-eligible, however, I'd vote not guilty, based solely on the sentence.

That's why juries are death qualified.

The same juror can vote guilty and no to the death penalty. I fail to see the logic in excluding the anti death penalty juror, other than the obvious reason which is to facilitate the execution of as many prisoners as possible.

The jury FIRST must find the person guilty, then a secondary hearing is held, in front of the same Jury, to decide the issue of the death penalty. Thus by the time the jury gets to deciding whether someone should be executed or not is is long AFTER the same jury has found the person guilty. Thus you would have voted him guilty in the first part of the trial, then you get ot hear why he or she should be or should not be executed.

...

The overlap between 'supports the death penalty' and 'willing to convict almost anyone of anything based on any evidence' is huge. The exclusion biases a jury toward conviction, and almost certainly biases a jury toward imposing the death sentence once convicted, and almost guarantees that the jury is not a jury of peers but a jury pre-selected for its bloodlust.

If the prosecutor presented sufficient evidence for you to truly believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendent committed the crime, would you vote to convict?

I would. I would not vote to convict if they were a death-eligible defendant, based solely on my opposition to the death penalty. I freely admit to being a big proponent of jury nullification in that case.

Which is exactly why death-qualification makes sure that the State gets a fair trial. If the decision of the jury can be altered based solely on the sentence, and not on the merits of the State's case, then there should be a mechanism in place to correct for that.

Whether or not to exercise capital punishment at all is a political question and should not, under any circumstances, and should not be subject to jury nullification. As much as I oppose the death penalty (and I'm a strict abolitionist, yes, even Hitler wouldn't get the death penalty), forcing the jury to decide between guilt and aquittal based on dislike of the sentence is just wrong.

Opposing the death penalty does not automatically mean a juror is going to vote not guilty, and yet that is the assumption here. If that assumption can be made about death penaltyopponents, then it seems fair that the opposite assumption should be made about death penalty supporters: they will always convict and always impose the death penalty. If you want a fair trial on this basis, then only jurors who have no opinion at all on the death penalty should be seated.

Death qualification works both ways.

If a juror said all murderers, child molesters, rapists, etc deserve the death penalty, they can be removed for cause.

n/t

Would you be willing to consider the full range of punishment?

It cust both ways. Some people get struck if they say, "I wouldn't ever consider giving probation to someone accused of homicide." Others are struck for saying they would never consider sentencing someone to death.

I have thought about how I would answer that question and decided I would say "If someone was on trial for telling 238 lies that caused the death of thousands of Americans and more than one million Iraqis, yes I would consider the death penalty."

Michigan hasn't had a death penalty in over 175 years, and we only executed 2 by that date in 1830.

One thing we can be proud of here: that barbarism has no place in Michigan.

Michigan has a constitutional provision dating to the 1830s that prohibits its legislature from even passing a death penalty. Thus it would take a State Constitutional Amendment to have the Death Penalty in Michigan.

Being opposed to the DP is grounds for summary dismissal from a jury pool for any case for which the DP is a possible punishment in the event of a conviction.

Witherspoon v. Illinois

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=391&page=510

Anti-dp folks need to be on the juries to determine guilt and its up to people like me to convince them during the penalty phase.

Thus many prosecutors seek the death penalty in any murder case, so that they can exclude death penalty opponents from the jury. This is NOT so much to get a Death Sentence, but if you exclude opponents of the Death penalty, you tend to exclude people who will take a more liberal view at the evidence and thus less likely to convict. You may even be able to exclude those people who will listen to an insanity defense and instead get a juror who demands an eye for an eye. Notice it is the Conviction that the Prosecution wants, the death penalty is just a means to help him or her get it. People who tend to oppose the Death Penalty tend to be more willing to accept the fact the Defendant may even be innocent.

If the evidence it they, even the hardest death penalty opponent will convict a defendant, but it if the evidence is not quite there prosecutors know they stand a better chance to get an conviction if they exclude Death penalty opponents from the Jury. This is the main reason such people are excluded, not because the prosecutor wants a death sentence, but he wants an conviction.