Sept. 26
USA:
Skewed System Undermines Fairness of Capital Punishment
(source: University of California, Santa Cruz)
How can otherwise normal, moral people participate in a process designed
to take the life of another? Noted death penalty researcher Craig Haney
finds the answer in a system that disengages those charged with deciding
the fate of defendants.
In a harsh critique of the death penalty before a gathering of the
nation's lawyers last month, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
said recent exonerations of death row inmates reveal serious procedural
flaws that undermine the way capital punishment is administered in this
country.
Stevens's remarks before members of the American Bar Association marked
one of the very few times that any member of the current court has
acknowledged systemic flaws that plague death penalty trials in the United
States, said Craig Haney, professor of psychology at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, and author of the just-published book, Death By
Design: Capital Punishment as a Social Psychological System (Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press, 2005).
In Death By Design, Haney addresses the fundamental question, "How can
otherwise normal, moral people participate in a process designed to take
the life of another?" Haney, one of the nation's most respected death
penalty researchers, finds the answer in a set of procedures and practices
that systematically "distance and disengage" those charged with deciding
the fate of defendants.
Building on more than 25 years of his own and others' empirical research,
Haney discusses the system of capital punishment as a whole and identifies
the elements that skew the system to facilitate death sentences. Three
factors emerge as pivotal:
- Jury selection--Like Stevens, Haney is critical of the jury selection
process in capital cases. By systematically screening out opponents of
capital punishment, the process produces unrepresentative juries (current
surveys show about 70 % of respondents favor the death penalty) and juries
that include a high concentration of people who are more inclined to
convict defendants.
- Sentencing instructions--Numerous studies reveal that jurors do not
understand the instructions they receive as they begin the sentencing
phase of capital trials, particularly the concept of "mitigation," the
legal grounds on which jurors can choose a life sentence rather than
death. "Death becomes the default outcome when jurors don't understand the
instructions they're given regarding mercy," said Haney.
- Cultural and media myths about crime--Print and broadcast news, as well
as crime-based television dramas, exaggerate the rate of violent crime and
demonize violent criminals without providing any real explanation of the
forces that influenced their behavior, said Haney. As a result, the public
knows little about the backgrounds of violent criminals and the factors
that contribute to violent crime, including poverty, neglect, racial
discrimination, and childhood abuse. "Media portrayals of violent
criminals are neither neutral nor accurate, and they have helped to create
an unprecedented level of punitiveness in our society," he said. "Most
people lack firsthand experience with the criminal justice system but are
immersed in these misleading messages and images. Many people believe
capital punishment is necessary for public safety without understanding
how the system really operates or the life circumstances of the defendants
who are most often targeted by it."
Haney maintains that these factors work in concert to undermine the
reliability of the criminal justice process and compromise the fairness of
the outcome of capital cases. "The flaws that riddle the system combine
and operate in tandem. They help enable people to participate in
behavior--actions designed to take the life of another person--that many
of them otherwise would reject and resist," he said.
Haney suggests the following reforms:
- Education--Public-opinion polls repeatedly indicate that the people most
in favor of the death penalty are the least informed. "People believe the
death penalty deters murder, yet there is no reliable evidence that it
does," said Haney. "Many believe people sentenced to life in prison
without possibility of parole eventually will get out, although that does
not happen." Haney would enlist journalists in an effort to educate the
public about capital punishment, but he cautioned that reporters would
have to educate themselves first to prevent amplification of inaccurate
messages that are sometimes politically motivated. "Unfortunately, the
death penalty has become so highly politicized that I'm afraid some
politicians perpetuate these myths--knowing full well they are
incorrect--simply because they believe these 'tough' stances will help
them get elected," said Haney.
- Media coverage--The media must work harder to provide a more accurate
and balanced picture of the real causes of violence in our society.
Reporters tend to rely on law enforcement and government sources for much
of their crime coverage. "Reporters don't know where to look for the other
side of the story, and the result is a one-dimensional, incomplete flow of
information that's fed to the public," said Haney. "Violence is most often
perpetrated by people who are damaged by mistreatment and other traumas
suffered earlier in life." Research by Haney and others indicates that the
overwhelming majority of capital defendants come from abusive,
impoverished backgrounds, and often there are signs early in their lives
that they were troubled by these experiences.
- Jury instructions--Building on recent opinions by U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Haney would bolster the requirement that
attorneys fully and completely investigate and present to jurors the
social history of defendants during the sentencing process. In addition,
to improve juror understanding of the concept of mitigation, Haney would
revise the way instructions are written, not only to avoid the confusion
that now plagues them, but also to minimize the dehumanization and
distancing effects of the process.
When the U.S. Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty in 1976,
justices broadened the scope of evidence and stipulated that jurors must
receive instructions that would guide their discretion as they weighed the
defendant's fate. But current efforts fall far short, concluded Haney, who
has coined the phrase "empathic divide" to describe the vast gap that
separates jurors from defendants in capital cases. The empathic divide
erodes the psychological barrier that, under normal circumstances, makes
it exceedingly difficult for most people to participate in the taking of
life. Without widespread reforms like those he has suggested, Haney is not
hopeful that the divide will be bridged any time soon.
"Many jurors are forced to muddle through this life-and-death
decision-making process confused about their duty and mired in inaccurate
media-based stereotypes," said Haney. "To truly improve the reliability
and fairness of the decision-making process in capital cases, overarching
reforms would be needed to break down the network of social psychological
forces that are at work."
(source: Newswise)
