Describe death qualification in the context of jury selection. Explain the controversy surrounding the practice

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Death qualification is a jury selection procedure used in capital cases that excludes
prospective jurors who say they would refuse to vote for the death penalty under any
circumstance. Although excluding such jurors from only the sentencing decisions in
capital cases would not be controversial (because these jurors admit that they are not
willing to endorse one of the sentencing options), death qualification is very
controversial because it also excludes these jurors from serving on the juries that
determine verdicts in the first place. The procedure is controversial because research
suggests that people who support the death penalty are not only more prosecutionminded on a host of issues but also more likely to vote guilty in a trial compared to
those who oppose the death penalty. The implication, then, is that using the practice of
death qualification biases juries against defendants, such that they are more likely to be
found guilty by a death-qualified jury than by one consisting of a mix of proponents and
opponents of capital punishment.