The Constitutionality of Death-Qualified Juries (Research Note)

In August of 1983 Federal Judge G. Thomas Eisele of the Eastern District of Arkansas held that a person is entitled to a new trial if he/she is tried for a capital crime and convicted in a two-stage trial and those persons who could never vote for the death penalty are automatically excluded for participation in the guilt-innocence phase of the trial.1 In a long opinion, analyzing the various aspects of the “death-qualified jury” issue, Judge Eisele relied very heavily on social science data from psychologists to conclude that barring those opposed to the death penalty in any form from the guilt-innocence phase of a trial would have the effect of eliminating a “distinctive group” in the community and thus violate the right of the defendant to be tried by a jury drawn from a cross-section of the community (See Duren v. Missouri (1979).