A juror who expresses exorbitant support for the death penalty who would thus otherwise be struck may be rehabilitated should they state a willingness to consider life imprisonment.
The use of a death-qualified jury was found to be consistent with the United States Constitution, most especially with the Sixth Amendment thereto, by the Supreme Court of the United States in Witherspoon v. Illinois,[1] and in Lockhart v. McCree;[2] neither decision, though, mandated the use of death-qualified juries as against those containing jurors categorically unwilling to impose a penalty of death.
A poll commissioned by the Death Penalty Information Center on June 9, 2007, showed 57% of Americans believed they would qualify to be jurors in capital cases.
Death-qualified juries are often criticized because they have a similar effect as excluding jurors based on race or gender,[4] which intentional exclusion, in Batson v. Kentucky in 1986, was held as inconsistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is argued that since death-qualified juries overrepresent these groups there is a propensity to render guilty verdicts even on counts in which the death penalty is not considered.