Since this is to be a capital prosecution, exacting standards must be met to assure that it is fair. Because of that qualitative difference, there is a corresponding difference in the need for reliability in the jury's determination that death is the appropriate punishment in a specific case.
Jurors have a hard enough time understanding their function in any trial.
In a capital prosecution the law is far more complex than in any other kind of case, and the stakes much higher. Obviously, the enclosure will have to be amended to fit the facts of the . . . As is illustrated by a brief conversation with any of the jurors from any prior capital trial, Chief Judge Lawson is quite correct to suggest that jurors have no idea what they are meant to be doing in a capital trial. If, and only if, he is found guilty of murder in the first degree, you would then be called upon to decide whether he will be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or to death. I need to discuss the possibility of the death penalty at this stage, just to let you know what might lie ahead of us.