DEATH-QUALIFIED JURY

in American law, a trial jury pronounced fit to decide a case involving the death penalty. The special fitness of jurors in death-punishable cases pertains to views on capital punishment. Exactly what views disqualify a juror is a much-debated problem. Under the long-standing practice of death qualification, a potential juror whoduring the preliminary questioning to assure against biasstated any opposition to the death penalty was excused from serving. In 1969 the United States doctrine on the subject was changed by the Supreme Court in Witherspoon v. Illinois, a murder trial. The court held that philosophical opposition to capital punishment did not disqualify a juror, that a person might oppose capital punishment yet believe in his duty to uphold the laws as they are until changed, and that he might perform his sworn duty as a juror to judge the case according to those laws. The court reasoned that a jury deciding between life imprisonment and execution is expressing the conscience of the community, and that no jury could do this impartially if persons opposing the death penalty were systematically excluded. The court's decision left unchanged the rule that persons indicating their absolute refusal to impose the death penalty at all are to be excluded from juries. Those who indicate that their views on capital punishment would keep them from rendering an impartial verdict on the defendant's guilt or innocence (i.e., whether he actually did the criminal act, rather than what punishment he should receive) were also left excluded. Death qualification of juries is obviously closely tied to the practice of capital punishment itself. The disappearance of capital punishment has eliminated death qualification in many countries.