The American Jury and the Death Penalty

Abstract

The reversal of civilized opinion on the death penalty during the past century and a half has been truly remarkable. It is an example of law in the process of radical change. 1 As late as 1825 England had no less than 230 capital crimes on its law books. By the turn of the century legislative inroads had reduced the capital list to murder and treason, and, after an attempt to reduce it still further to certain types of murder, the English evolution has come to completion and the death penalty has now been abolished for all crimes. 2 Although in England the death penalty, wherever applicable by statute, was mandatory on the trial process, the English jury played a major role in its gradual attenuation. On many occasions the jury simply refused to convict a clearly guilty defendant in order to t Copyright 0 1966 by Little, Brown and Company. This article is a chapter from the authors' forthcoming book THE AMERICAN JURY, which is to be published by Little, Brown and Company in September, and which is an outgrowth of the work of the University of Chicago Law School Project on Law and the Behavioral Sciences. The authors anticipate the eventual publication of two additional books describing the results of their studies of jury behavior. The reader is advised of the deletion of cross-references to other sections of the work and of citations of specific research materials of the authors. A review of THE AMERICAN JURY is to be found in this issue at p. 884. 0 With the collaboration of

The effects of information and social conformity on opinion change

“…In fact, the authors point directly to the issue of intra-group conformity due to compliance as a culprit for this phenomenon. The coercive influence of social pressure during deliberation has been further identified in jury deliberations [ 38 , 39 ] and other small group settings [ 40 ].…”

What Makes Race Salient? Juror Decision-Making in Same-Race Versus Cross-Race Identification Scenarios and the Influence of Expert Testimony

“…An additional limitation of the current study is the lack of jury deliberation. Although individual verdicts can be largely predictive of group decisions (Devine, Buddenbaum, Houp, Stolle, & Studebaker, 2007; Kalven & Zeisel, 1966), group discussion can also serve to increase or decrease levels of bias among its members (Salerno & Diamond, 2010). Sommers (2006) also found that the racial composition of the jury can affect discussions of race during deliberations, and so while we uncovered some effects of individual juror race, group effects are especially relevant here.…”

Jurors'Evaluations of Expert Testimony: Judging the Messenger and the Message

“…In their sample of criminal jury trials from the 1950s, Kalven and Zeisel (1966) found that experts testified relatively infrequently. Just one case in four included an expert, typically a medical doctor and usually a prosecution expert witness (Kalven and Zeisel 1966, 139-40, tables 37 and 38).…”