The US Supreme Court has required that death penalty schemes narrow the class of persons eligible for a death sentence. Through the selection requirement, juries must use mitigating and aggravating evidence jointly to select the offenders engaged in the worst of the worst crimes. This study utilized between‐subjects experimental design to test juror's ability to narrow directly. Utilizing the vignette approach, with brief descriptions of capital trials nested in self‐administered questionnaires, we experimentally manipulated aggravating and mitigating evidence presented to mock jurors and examined their sentencing decisions in two independent samples. While mock jurors were able to identify offenders they considered to be engaged in serious crimes and offenders with diminished culpability, mitigating evidence and aggravating evidence did not interact and there was considerable inconsistency in the effects of mitigating evidence within and between samples. Implications for the constitutionality of the death penalty are considered.

中文翻译：

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检查陪审员的能力，以符合缩小量刑的宪法要求。

美国最高法院要求死刑计划缩小有资格判处死刑的人的范围。通过甄选要求，陪审团必须共同使用缓解和加重证据，以选择犯下最严重罪行中最严重的罪犯。这项研究利用受试者之间的实验设计来测试陪审员直接变窄的能力。利用小插图方法，对资本试验的简要说明嵌套在自我管理的调查表中，我们通过实验操作了加重和减轻向模拟陪审员提供的证据，并在两个独立样本中检查了他们的量刑决定。虽然模拟陪审员能够确定犯罪者，但他们认为他们已犯下严重罪行，而犯罪者的犯罪率却有所下降，缓解证据和加重证据没有相互作用，并且在样本内部和样本之间的缓解证据的效果存在相当大的不一致。考虑了死刑的合宪性含义。