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Capital juror questionnaires in death‐penalty cases: A study of attitudes, denials, and deceptions
Author(s) -
Rogers Richard,
Sharf Allyson J.,
Myers Bryan,
Drogin Eric Y.,
Williams Margot M.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.2451
Subject(s) - misrepresentation , jury , psychology , operationalization , capital (architecture) , social psychology , law , criminology , political science , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology , history
The Sixth Amendment right to an “impartial jury” should guarantee fundamental fairness that in capital cases may literally be a matter of life and death. For ecological validity, the current study focuses on capital jury questionnaires (CJQs) employed in actual death‐penalty cases. Study I examined 248 undergraduates and their responses to death‐penalty relevant questions. As an MTurk investigation, Study II consisted of 259 community members potentially eligible for capital trial jury trials. Misrepresentations were operationalized as either denials (concealing their true views) or outright deceptions (dissembling the opposite viewpoint). Both studies found that CJQ items were very susceptible to both types of misrepresentation, irrespective of support‐life or support‐death views. Nearly 30% of undergraduates openly acknowledged that they would misrepresent close to half their CJQ responses. Overall, community members were much more willing to engage in denials and outright deceptions. The discussion focuses on how CJQs could be improved to promote candor about death‐penalty views.