Bias
Several studies have found that death-qualified juries are made up of fewer women and minorities. Death-qualified juries are often criticized because they have a similar effect as excluding jurors based on race or gender, which exclusion, in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986, was held as inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Empirical evidence adduced in Lockhart also has shown that death-qualified juries are more likely than other jurors to convict a defendant. That is, death-qualified jurors are more likely than non-death-qualified jurors to vote for conviction when assessing the same sets of facts. It is argued that since death-qualified juries overrepresent these groups there is a propensity to render guilty verdicts on cases of any type, including those in which the death penalty is not considered.
Read more about this topic: Death-qualified Jury
Famous quotes containing the word bias:
“The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)