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How Juries Decide Death: The Contributions Of The Capital Jury Project, Valerie P. Hans
How Juries Decide Death: The Contributions Of The Capital Jury Project, Valerie P. Hans
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
In 1988 I concluded a review of what was then known about capital jury decision-making with the following observations: “[T]he penalty phase presents significant incongruities. The jurors are charged with representing the community's judgment, yet the voir dire and challenge processes have eliminated significant segments of the public from the jury. Jurors have been influenced by preceding events during voir dire questioning and the trial in pivotal ways, yet they are instructed to focus only on aggravating and mitigating evidence. They are told to ignore their emotions in perhaps one of the most emotionally charged decisions they will ever make, …
The Romance Of Revenge: An Alternative History Of Jeffrey Dahmer's Trial, Samuel R. Gross
The Romance Of Revenge: An Alternative History Of Jeffrey Dahmer's Trial, Samuel R. Gross
Articles
On Feb. 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to fifteen consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering fifteen young men and boys. Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On Jan. 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on Jan. 30. The jury heard two weeks of horrifying testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for five hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed thos crimes. After …