Document Type

Article

Publication Title

University of Pennsylvania Law Review

Abstract

The Constitution does not now prohibit a death penalty. Legislatures may define crimes, conviction of which may lead to death, so long as death is not mandatory. Persons convicted of these crimes have a right to a hearing at which a sentencer decides whether the sentence will be death. A constitutional death penalty law must therefore contain procedures for choosing who will be executed from among those who may be. This Article is about certain of the procedures for deciding who dies. Its subject is who decides who dies. It concludes that the reasoning in United States Supreme Court decisions in capital punishment cases in the twelve years between Witherspoon v. Illinois and Adams v. Texas requires, first, that the death penalty be imposed by a jury, not a judge, unless a jury is knowingly waived, and second, that persons who will not vote to impose death under any circumstances may not be challenged from the sentencing jury for cause, nor may their penalty views be elicited on voir dire.

First Page

1

DOI

https://doi.org/10.2307/3311713

Volume

129

Publication Date

1980

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