Entries tagged with “Death Qualification”
Feb 25, 2026
Black History: Forty Years After Supreme Court Upheld “Death Qualification” of Juries, Data Consistently Shows Disproportionate Racial Exclusion
The Constitution mandates that juries be drawn from a “fair cross-section” of the community. Yet public opinion polls show that a substantial portion of the community opposes the death penalty. How, then, can the government seat a jury that will fairly decide whether to impose the death penalty and protect a defendant’s constitutional jury rights? The legal system’s longstanding answer to this question is a procedure called “death qualification,” which allows prosecutors to dismiss any…
Issues
Feb 20, 2024
Op-Ed: Law Professor Stephen Bright Encourages SCOTUS to Review “Egregious Racial Discrimination” in Georgia Death Row Prisoner’s Case
In a February 14, 2024 op-ed published in the Washington Post, the longtime defense lawyer, former director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and law professor Stephen Bright highlights the continued illegal exclusion of Black jurors in violation of Batson v. Kennedy (1986). The op-ed titled, “Struck from a jury for being Black? It still happens all too often,” uses the case of Georgia death-sentenced prisoner Warren King, whose petition the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to review on…
Issues
Oct 20, 2022
Commentary: North Carolina’s Use of Death Qualification Disenfranchises Black People From Serving on Death Penalty Juries
The process of death qualification, which excludes people who oppose the death penalty from serving on capital juries, is racially discriminatory, civil rights advocate Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II wrote in an October 10, 2022 op-ed. Rev. Barber and his co-authors, pastor Dumas Harshaw Jr. and preacher Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, introduce their article with a recognition of J.W. Hood, a Black man and AME Zion pastor, who fought to abolish slavery and co-authored North Carolina’s modern…
Issues
Sep 23, 2022
North Carolina ACLU Challenges Death Qualification of Jurors as Racially and Sexually Discriminatory
Lawyers for a North Carolina capital defendant have filed a sweeping challenge to the method by which death-penalty jurors are empaneled, arguing that the combination of a process known as “death qualification” and discretionary jury strikes produces a jury so racially and sexually unrepresentative that it violates a defendant’s right to a fair trial. Death qualification refers to the process of removing potential jurors from service in a capital case because of their expressed opposition to…