Deciding to Take a Life: Capital Juries, Sentencing Instructions, and the Jurisprudence of Death

Abstract

Death sentencing is a psychologically complex and legally profound process. Our research explored the experiences of capital jurors who had deliberated to verdict in death penalty sentencing hearings. In‐depth interviews conducted with samples of jurors from two states—California and Oregon—examined the nature and function of capital sentencing instructions, jurors' interpretations of the evidence that was presented during the penalty phase of the trial, their conceptions of the nature of the task before them, and whether the two fundamentally different sentencing frameworks significantly altered the decision‐making process.