NCJ Number
147544
Journal
Cornell Law Review Volume: 79 Issue: 1 Dated: (November 1993) Pages: 1-17
Date Published
1993
Length
17 pages
Annotation
The adequacy of juror instructions in capital cases in South Carolina is explored.
Abstract
This article analyzes data from South Carolina, gathered as part of the Capital Jury Project, a National Science Foundation-funded multistate research effort, to inform policymakers and courts about how actual jurors decide between life and death in capital cases. Jurors who sat in 31 South Carolina murder cases were randomly sampled, with a goal of four juror interviews per case. Nineteen cases resulting in death sentences and twelve cases resulting in life sentences are in the sample. The cases in the study are all South Carolina capital cases (other than resentencings) brought since enactment of the South Carolina Omnibus Criminal Justice Improvements Act of 1986. A total of 114 live interviews were completed by interviewers trained to work with the 50-page interview instrument. Data collected include facts about the crime; the racial, economic and other characteristics of the defendant, the victim, and their families; the process of juror deliberation; and the conduct of the case by defense counsel, the prosecutor, and the judge. The interviews also included questions about jurors' backgrounds and their views on the death penalty. Divided into four parts, Part I of the article describes the data and the law, Part II shows that jurors' false expectations about alternatives to the death sentence probably influence their sentencing decisions; Part III establishes that jurors do not understand the burdens of proof governing the sentencing phase of murder trials; and Part IV shows that confusion works against the defendant because the jurors' strong initial inclination is to sentence to death. The authors conclude that keeping juries ignorant about parole possibilities does not necessarily protect defendants and that informing juries about mandatory parole limitations does not interfere with executive discretion in the administration of sentences. Informing juries would assure that the decisionmaker primarily responsible for the life-or-death determination decides on the basis of reliable information about the law and not on the basis of avoidable and inaccurate speculation. South Carolina's system misleads jurors about fundamental aspects of the punishment decision. This system needs to remedy these problems to assist juries in their exercise of discretion in the sentencing phase of capital cases. A two- page appendix to the article includes selected questions from the interview instrument. Tables, footnotes