The great tax cut myth. And they stress that the effects of death-qualification on the racial composition of juries can be quite stark. In a 1994 study, for example, Haney and coauthors Aida Hurtado and Luis Vega reported that while minorities accounted for 18.5 percent of the people in the California jury pools they examined, they represented 26.3 percent of those excluded from jury panels through the death-qualifying process. Studies also indicate that women tend to be excluded, since they are also more likely to oppose the death penalty. It's quite an ethnic cleansing that goes on and it is very disturbing.
Prosecutors know that death-qualifying a jury is a great way to help ensure a conviction.
In Philadelphia, District Attorney Lynne Abraham seeks the death penalty from the outset in an astonishing 85 percent of murder cases, according to a study from the city's public defender's office. One reason for the Philadelphia district attorney's predilection for capital cases may be a jury selection training tape prepared in the mid-1980s by then Assistant District Attorney Jack McMahon. In that tape, which is featured in the appeal by black journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal of his 1982 death sentence for the killing of a white Philadelphia cop, McMahon urges prosecutors to seek to impose the death penalty in as many cases as possible. That way, he explains helpfully, they then get the benefit of death-qualifying jurors, and with their peremptory challenges they can remove even those who express vague or minor concerns about imposing the ultimate sanction. Abraham's office did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment.