ABSTRACT
"Death-qualification" refers to the process of screening potential jurors in capital cases and eliminating those persons who are hesitant or unwilling to play a role in imposing the death penalty. Such persons are dismissed "for cause" and may not sit on the jury. In the thirty-eight states that currently authorize capital punishment, the jury makes the decision to impose death, or a lesser sentence, after finding the defendant guilty. The Court first faced the issue of death- qualification in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 US 510. Illinois law allowed the removal of any juror with "conscientious scruples against capital punishment," even if the juror asserted that he would be able to follow and apply the law. The Witherspoon decision led to increased efforts to document the effects of death-qualification. The new social science evidence about the effects of death-qualification was brought before the Supreme Court in Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412, and Lockhart v. McCree, 476 US 162.
