Aside from my moral opposition to the death penalty and my belief that such punishment is cruel and unusual, it has always struck me as more than a little problematic that prospective jurors are routinely excluded from capital cases when their ability or willingness to impose a sentence of death is called into question. Although it is conceivable that a juror could put aside their personal beliefs and opt to impose the death penalty and that a prosecutor could opt not to disqualify such a juror, I suspect that, in reality, the vast majority of those who are jurors in capital cases are proponents of the death penalty. And that, in my mind, makes them inherently biased—and perhaps not just with regard to the punishment they will mete out.

I wonder if any research has been conducted to determine whether there is any correlation between an individual’s beliefs/attitudes about the death penalty and their beliefs/attitudes about those charged with a capital crime. For example, if you are more inclined to favor the death penalty, are you also more inclined to believe that a defendant, by virtue of having been charged and brought to trial, is guilty? If you are generally predisposed to impose the harshest sentence, are you also predisposed to view a defendant more harshly? I cannot help but think that stacking juries in capital cases with death penalty proponents and apologists creates a prejudicial environment and tips the scales of justice unfairly. Furthermore, I cannot help but wonder—given recent shifts in attitudes about the death penalty that seem largely due to the accumulating work of the Innocence Project—about the mindset and impartiality of those who nonetheless continue to steadfastly support capital punishment.

In any regard, earlier this week, as reported here by the Washington Post, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that reinforces the status quo on jury selection in capital cases:

Ruling Affirms Judges’ Authority

The Supreme Court bolstered trial judges’ authority to shape juries in death penalty cases yesterday, ruling that a court in Washington state properly disqualified a man who expressed doubts about capital punishment during pretrial questioning.

By a vote of 5 to 4, the justices concluded that the exclusion was reasonable and consistent with Supreme Court precedents, which require that jurors in capital cases be “death qualified” — able to impose death if the law provides for it, even if they oppose capital punishment.

The prospective juror said he supported the death penalty, but only if the killer might otherwise go free and kill again. Prosecutors argued that this meant he would automatically vote against the death penalty, because Washington allows an alternative of life in prison without parole.

The trial judge agreed, and the prospective juror was dismissed. The defendant, Cal Coburn Brown, was convicted and sentenced to death. But the defense appealed, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, overturned the sentence. The high court overturned that ruling yesterday.

The juror’s answers, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote, “could have led the trial court to believe that [the juror] would be substantially impaired in his ability to impose the death penalty in the absence of the possibility that Brown would be released and would reoffend.” Kennedy was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Justice John Paul Stevens showed his displeasure with the ruling by reading his dissenting opinion from the bench.

The ruling, Stevens said, would tilt jury selection in favor of prosecutors. The majority “appears to be under the impression that trial courts should be encouraging the inclusion of jurors who will impose the death penalty rather than only ensuring the exclusion of those who say that, in all circumstances, they cannot.” [full text]