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The Changing Nature Of Death Qualification And Its Interaction With Attitude Salience, Brendan Busch
The Changing Nature Of Death Qualification And Its Interaction With Attitude Salience, Brendan Busch
CMC Senior Theses
Death qualification is a problematic aspect of capital trials, as death qualified jurors have higher conviction rates than non-death qualified jurors. The current study examines whether the death qualification process itself affects juror decision-making via attitude salience effects.
Participants (n=90) recruited from the venire juror pool at the Santa Ana Superior Court were asked to read a trial transcript and decide guilt or innocence and whether they would sentence the defendant to death. Half of the participants were given a survey determining death qualification before they read the trial (making death qualification salient), while the other half were given the …