A new study by William Bowers and oth­ers pub­lished in the Criminal Law Bulletin revealed that most jurors in death penal­ty cas­es lack suf­fi­cient under­stand­ing of their duties, ren­der­ing the process uncon­sti­tu­tion­al by Supreme Court stan­dards. The study showed that cap­i­tal jurors often mis­tak­en­ly believe that a death sen­tence is required by law, and fail to take pri­ma­ry respon­si­bil­i­ty for the defen­dan­t’s pun­ish­ment. The study sug­gest­ed that jurors tend to believe death should be the pun­ish­ment for heinous crimes and that death is need­ed as a deter­rent and required by law. When the U.S. Supreme Court rein­stat­ed the death penal­ty in Gregg v. Geogia, it stat­ed that improved jury instruc­tions and court pro­ce­dures would reduce the arbi­trari­ness in cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing. The report’s find­ings sug­gest that after many years of exper­i­men­ta­tion these reme­dies have failed: ​“It appears that jurors can­not be suc­cess­ful­ly direct­ed in mak­ing such an omi­nous deci­sion by guide­lines and pro­ce­dures devised to insure a rea­soned moral judg­ment free of arbi­trari­ness. Being out­raged by heinous killings and ambiva­lent about order­ing some­one killed, are ​‘nor­mal’ human reactions.”

(W. Bowers, W. Foglia, S. Dietzel and C. Kelly, ​“Jurors’ Failure to Understand or Comport with Constitutional Standards in Capital Sentencing: Strength of the Evidence,” 46 Criminal Law Bulletin ___(2010)). See Sentencing and Studies. See also pri­or arti­cle by W. Bowers & W. Foglia, ​“Still Singularly Agonizing: Law’s Failure to Purge Arbitrariness from Capital Sentencing,” Criminal Law Bulletin.

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