NCJ Number
153189
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 18 Issue: 6 Dated: (December 1994) Pages: 619-633
Date Published
1994
Length
15 pages
Annotation
In this statewide survey of death penalty attitudes in California, respondents were categorized in terms of their death qualified or excludable status under several different U.S. Supreme Court doctrines governing the death qualification process.
Abstract
Telephone interviews were conducted with a sample of adult California residents. Random digit dialing was employed to maximize the sample's representativeness. The survey included about 40 items related to the death penalty. Of 498 persons interviewed, 52 percent were men, 19 percent were from minority groups, and the average age was 41 years. Survey results showed that, although changes in public opinion on the death penalty generally altered relative sizes of death qualified and excludable groups, significant differences remained between groups on a number of attitudinal dimensions. These differences were likely the result of shifts in abstract support for the death penalty. The effect of Witt's revision in the law of death qualification was to expand the category of persons found excludable because of their death penalty attitudes. Despite several modifications in the legal standard applied to exclude potential jurors on the basis of their death penalty attitudes, this process continued to produce a group of eligible jurors in capital cases that appeared to be significantly different on a number of important dimensions from jurors eligible to sit in other criminal cases. Findings underscore the inappropriateness of drawing conclusions about societal condemnation of the death penalty in various contexts and for specific cases based on verdicts rendered by capital juries. Implications of the survey results are discussed with respect to the U.S. Supreme Court's continued reference to the death qualified jury. 57 references, 9 footnotes, and 3 tables