Deck 8: The Death Penalty

Question 1

Which of the following is an argument convicted criminals typically use against the death penalty

A) It violates the eighth amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment
B) It violates due process and equal protection
C) Both are argument against the death penalty
D) None of these are arguments that convicted criminals use against the death penalty

Answer 1

Both are argument against the death penalty

Question 2

In Gregg vs. Georgia,

A) The Supreme court reversed the decision in the Furman decision about the national suspension of the death penalty
B) The Supreme Court ruled death penalty unconstitutional in all states
C) The idea of a two phased trial in capital cases was proposed and each phase required a separate trial, but the same jurors would sit on both
D) A or C only

Answer 2

The idea of a two phased trial in capital cases was proposed and each phase required a separate trial, but the same jurors would sit on both

Question 3

_______ is an argument law enforcement officials and the public use in favor of the death penalty

A) Legal retribution or revenge
B) Community safety
C) Entertainment
D) All of the above
E) A and B only

Answer 3

A and B only

Question 4

Some proponents of capitol punishment argue that

A) The existence of capitol punishment will discourage people from committing violent crimes
B) The death penalty is 100% fool proof
C) Both A and B
D) Neither A or B

Question 5

Some opponents of the death penalty argue

A) The state should not engage in killing because the justice system should represent our highest values
B) It is morally wrong to kill innocent people
C) Capitol punishment leaves a lot of room for error
D) All of the above

Question 6

The result of the Baldus study on the effects of race on capitol punishment decisions indicates

A) Race of a victim was one of the weakest independent predictions of whether or not criminals received the death penalty
B) Race of a victim was one of the strongest predictors of whether or not criminals would receive the death penalty
C) Race did not seem to effect the likelihood of receiving the death penalty
D) Race was an issue only when the defendant was of Hispanic or Latino descent

Question 7

In the case of Witherspoon vs. Illinois, it was argued that

A) The Illinois jury selection was unfair because it excluded both jurors who were totally against the death penalty and those who had some qualms about it, but would follow the law, creating a "hanging jury."
B) Racial discrimination was an instigator in convicting Witherspoon to die
C) Neither A or B
D) Both A and B

Question 8

Studies on the correlation between death penalty attitudes and the likelihood of finding someone guilty in a trial show that death qualified jurors

A) More likely to accept a presumption of innocence
B) More inclined to believe that the courts have protected the guilty party by legal technicalities
C) Less inclined to believe that the insanity defense is a loophole that allows too many to go free
D) All of the above e.

Question 9

Which of the following is a lesson that social scientists learned from the case of Lockheart vs. McCree

A) Social science research designed to influence legal decision making should be ecologically valid
B) Social science testing should be scientifically valid
C) There is little hope for social science perspective taking a large role in the United States legal system
D) All of the above
E) A and B only

Question 10

When examining the death penalty for juveniles, it can be noted that

A) It is illegal to execute any person under the age of 18 in all states and cases
B) In some states, a juvenile can be given the same sentence as an adult, including the death penalty
C) The U.S. Supreme Court has been considering erasing the idea of a juvenile trials and mandating that everyone, no matter what age, is tried as an adult
D) The threat of the death penalty has significantly lowered crime rate among minors

Question 11

How should children be punished when they commit heinous crimes, such as murder or rape? Should they be tried as adults and perhaps face the death penalty, or should they be tried as juveniles with the idea that they are just being kids and will grow out of this violent phase?

Question 12

What are the four reasons for punishment identified by your authors? How do these enter into the discussion of the death penalty?

Question 13

What evidence is there for/against the deterrent effect of capital punishment?

Question 14

When death penalty states' appeals courts review death penalty cases for proportionality, what are they looking for?

Question 15

What research evidence is there for the effects of race in decisions about death penalties?

Question 16

What is the significance of the McCleskey case for an understanding the differences between social science and legal reasoning on the issue of racial bias in capital sentencing?

Question 17

What is a death qualified jury? A Witherspoon-excludable juror? What evidence is there to suggest that jurors' willingness to impose a death penalty will affect their view of the guilt of the defendant?

Question 18

In the United States, in the early days of the country, the death penalty

A) was carried out as a public event, in broad daylight before large curious crowds
B) was abolished as immoral because hanging occurred so often under the King
C) was always eagerly embraced by jurors who voted for it regularly even if the offense was minor
D) was abolished by the 8^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Question 19

Thirty eight states have the death penalty. In these states

A) very few cases appeal the verdict of the jury
B) all cases are appealed
C) death row prisoners are not allowed to appeal
D) very few death penalty convictions are judged by legal standards to have been wrongfully imposed

Question 20

Challenges to death penalty sentences have been made successfully on grounds that the death penalty violates

A) the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and is therefore unconstitutional
B) the 14^th Amendment's due process and equal protection clauses and is therefore imposed arbitrarily or unfairly
C) a) and b)
D) b) but not a

Question 21

The U.S. Supreme Court up held a death penalty statute that

A) specified the offenses subject to the death penalty
B) provided for a two phase trial, one to decide guilt or innocence and a second phase to decide the penalty
C) provided for consideration of aggravating and mitigating factors in the penalty phase of the trial
D) all of the above

Question 22

The U.S. constitution

A) requires that each state have a death penalty law
B) does not prohibit each state from having a death penalty statute nor require that it have a death penalty statute
C) prohibits states from abolishing their death penalty statutes
D) requires states to abolish their death penalty statutes

Question 23

Punishment serves several purposes in the law.

A) Capital punishment is most effective in fulfilling the several purposes of punishment
B) The goal of rehabilitation even when apparently met does not prevent states from executing convicted offenders
C) Capital punishment is not meant to exact legal revenge for a horrible crime
D) Research shows unequivocally that capital punishment deters not only homicides but all crimes

Question 24

Laboratory research on punishment suggests that it is most effective in controlling behavior when it is both swift and certain. Capital punishment

A) is both swift and certain for most homicides
B) is swift because the median time to execution is a matter of months from the date of the crime
C) is neither swift nor certain for most homicides
D) is certain because it is sought for most murders in which the offense makes capital punishment a legal possibility

Question 25

Many opponents of capital punishment argue

A) it is immoral for the state to engage in killing even if the person committed a capital crime
B) that historically the death penalty was not acceptable in the U.S. Constitution
C) that religious teaching has always opposed the death penalty for crimes
D) all of the above

Question 26

Death sentence rates taking into account the degree of culpability based on a review of the case showed that

A) when the victim was white, the likelihood of a death penalty was less than when the victim was black
B) when the victim was black the likelihood of a death penalty was greater than when the victim was white
C) there was no difference in the imposition of the death penalty by race of the victim
D) when the victim was white, the likelihood of a death penalty was greater than when the victim was black

Question 27

In the McCleskey death penalty opinion , the U.S. Supreme Court majority discussed statistical data about the death penalty. The majority opinion.

A) rejected the statistical data presented in the record because it was a correlation, and did not show the intention of legal actors involved in the particular case at hand to discriminate
B) accepted the data because it was based on a systems theory of institutional racism and not discrimination in the particular case.
C) accepted that the statistical data should be weighted heavily because it threw into serious question the principles that underlie the justice system
D) said that the history of racial discrimination, culture and the social system were important in ascertaining whether there was discrimination in the particular case

Question 28

When a jury is death qualified, it means that every juror selected to serve on a potential death penalty case after the voir dire

A) is so in favor of the death penalty that they would impose it in every case in which the defendant was found guilty of a capital offense
B) could review evidence impartially, and if the defendant was found guilty of a capital offense could vote for the death penalty
C) has conscientious objections to the death penalty and would never vote to find the defendant guilty of a capital charge because of his or her objections to the death penalty
D) is alive and able to pay full attention to the evidence in the case

Question 29

According to research studies, death qualified jurors, compared to those rejected for service on a capital jury

A) are less inclined to accept the presumption of innocence
B) more inclined to believe that a defendant who did not testify at the trial was concealing guilt
C) less concerned about the danger of erroneous conviction
D) all of the above

Question 30

The U.S. Supreme court in an opinion in a death penalty case reviewed 15 studies using different approaches that showed that death qualified jurors were more prone to convict that non-death qualified jurors, On the basis of that review the majority opinion said

A) the evidence that death qualified jurors were more prone to convict was highly impressive, because it was based on diverse methodologies,
B) discounted all of the studies because they were methodologically flawed or were not directly relevant to the legal issues in the case
C) the Court would have found in the defendant's favor and overturned his conviction if the studies were better methodologically and more on point
D) that death qualification or conviction proneness is not required in order to have a representative jury

Question 31

Reviewing death qualification studies, most, but not all, psychologists

A) Thought that the death qualification research studies were persuasive because the results of many studies with different methods all pointed in the same direction
B) Thought that the research had produced robust, replicable results that could be used for policy making about the legal rules for jury selection in death penalty cases
C) Thought that one lesson from the Court's reaction to the death penalty studies was that research designed to influence court decisions should be more ecologically valid and closely related to the legal issues in the case
D) All of the above.

Question 32

In a death penalty case, jurors sitting on the penalty phase

A) are not the usually same as the jurors sitting on the guilt-determining phase
B) also have to find by a simple majority that in addition to convicting the defendant of the crime, "aggravating" factors were proven
C) also have to make a reasoned moral response in the case to determine if mitigating factors were sufficiently present to allow the juror to find that the death penalty was not morally appropriate in the case
D) don't have to struggle with the judge's instructions because research has shown that most jurors understand the instructions very well

Question 33

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individuals who were mentally retarded at the time they committed the crime

A) should not be executed because it violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment as understood in the present day
B) were more culpable than others who committed similar crimes because they were more suggestible
C) were less culpable than others who committed similar crimes because they are incapable of self control and are therefore more of a menace to society
D) would not bring appeals because under the rules it was very difficult to prove the individual had a very low IQ at the moment of the crime

Question 34

Until very recently, youth were subject to execution in the United States if they committed capital crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently that

A) because the United Nations. Convention on the Rights of Children barred capital punishment or life imprisonment without possibility of parole for those under 18 at the time they committed their crime, in the United States youth who cmmited capital offenses could serve no more than 20 year terms
B) because the American Bar Association and other professional groups argued in an amicus brief that adolescence is not an excuse for crime youth who committed adult crimes should not escape punishment.
C) because the consensus in the United States had changed, those under age 18 at the time they committed their crime were less culpable because of their immaturity and it would violate the Eighth Amendment 's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment to execute such a youth
D) it was irrelevant to American law that every other country in the world still executed youth

Question 35

Reforms of the justice system to prevent wrongful convictions can utilize research that identifies

A) reasons in the legal system for wrongful convictions (e.g. poorly paid defense lawyers)
B) changes in police practices to prevent faulty eyewitness identification
C) police practices that lead to false confessions
D) all of the above