The Empire State Strikes Back: Examining Death-And Life-Qualification Of Jurors And Sentencing Alternatives Under New York'S Capital-Punishment Law

New York's 195 death-penalty legislation requires prospective jurors to be “death qualified” and “life qualified” in order to serve in capital trials. Thus, if a venire member's views about capital punishment would interfere with his or her ability to consider imprisoning both statutory sentencing options of death and life imprisonment without parole (LWOP), the prospective juror is excluded by law from participating in either guilt-phase or penalty-phase deliberations. In addition, although the law requires jurors to choose between sentences of death and LWOP following a capital-murder conviction, it includes a unique provision governing cases in which a jury is unable to achieve a unanimous sentencing verdict: the judge must sentence the defendant to a term of 20 to 25 years to life imprisonment, and the jury is so instructed prior to beginning its deliberations. This article reports the results of a survey that sheds light on the effects that death-and life-qualification may have on “crime control” and “due process” attitudes represented on New York capital juries, and on the demographic attributes of jury members. Information also is presented about whether potential jurors would be induced by the law's sentencing options to switch their votes in order to avoid a nonunanimous penalty-phase verdict that would result in an offender's receiving a 20 to 25 year to life sentence. The survey results have potentially troubling implications for the administration of New York's death-penalty legislation.