Death qualification has been shown to have a number of biasing effects that appear to undermine a capital defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair jury. Attitudes toward the death penalty have shifted modestly but consistently over the last several decades in ways that may have changed the overall impact of death qualification. Specifically, the very large gap between black and white Americans' current support for capital punishment raises the question of whether death qualification procedures disproportionately exclude African Americans from capital jury participation. In order to examine this possibility, we conducted two countywide death penalty attitude surveys in the California county that has the highest percentage of African American residents in the state. Results show that death qualification continues to have a number of serious biasing effects—including disproportionately excluding death penalty opponents—which result in the significant underrepresentation of African Americans. This creates a death‐qualified jury pool with the potential to be significantly more likely to ignore and even misuse mitigating factors and to rely more heavily on aggravating factors in their death penalty decision making. The implications of these findings for the fair administration of capital punishment are discussed.

中文翻译：

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黑白死亡资格：种族化的决策和死亡资格陪审团

死亡资格已被证明具有许多偏见影响，这些影响似乎削弱了死刑被告的第六修正案获得公平陪审团的权利。在过去的几十年里，人们对死刑的态度发生了适度但始终如一的转变，可能已经改变了死亡资格的整体影响。具体而言，美国黑人和白人目前对死刑的支持之间的巨大差距引发了一个问题，即死亡资格程序是否不成比例地将非裔美国人排除在死刑陪审团之外。为了检验这种可能性，我们在加州非裔美国人居民比例最高的县进行了两次全县死刑态度调查。结果表明，死亡资格继续产生许多严重的偏见影响——包括不成比例地排除死刑反对者——导致非裔美国人的代表性严重不足。这创造了一个符合死刑条件的陪审团，更有可能忽视甚至滥用减轻处罚的因素，并在他们的死刑决策中更加依赖加重处罚的因素。讨论了这些发现对公平执行死刑的影响。这创造了一个符合死刑条件的陪审团，更有可能忽视甚至滥用减轻处罚的因素，并在他们的死刑决策中更加依赖加重处罚的因素。讨论了这些发现对公平执行死刑的影响。这创造了一个符合死刑条件的陪审团，更有可能忽视甚至滥用减轻处罚的因素，并在他们的死刑决策中更加依赖加重处罚的因素。讨论了这些发现对公平执行死刑的影响。