Law Commons^™

Prosecutorial Peremptory Challenge Practices In Capital Cases: An Empirical Study And A Constitutional Analysis, Bruce J. Winick

Michigan Law Review

As presently construed, the Constitution does not prohibit the death penalty. The states and the federal government may punish the commission of certain crimes with death, so long as the extreme penalty is not imposed on a mandatory basis and so long as the procedures used in imposing a death sentence meet constitutional scrutiny.

A demonstration that the prosecutor used the peremptory challenge in the manner described in a single case probably would be insufficient to support a constitutional challenge in the federal courts and in the vast majority of state courts. In these courts a prosecutor's use of the …