Death Qualification Process Leads to Jurors More Likely to Convict
By Natasha Minsker
Special to the Vanguard
Editor’s Note: Next week the death penalty trial opens for Marco Topete and they will begin a process known as death qualifying the jury. The ACLU of Northern California’s Death Penalty expert Natasha Minsker discusses what that means and the implications of it.
The right to be tried by a jury of your peers is a basic right in America. It is one of the innovations enshrined in our Constitution that sets our nation apart from most of the rest of the world. While most of us dread being called for jury service, we know that if it was us who stood accused of a crime, we would want to be judged by a cross-section of our community, not a government official in a black robe.
