Unfortunately, punishments (except the death penalty) may not be considered when determining guilt in trials by jury.
While it will be tough to find people who don’t know anything about this, the courts will be able to find an impartial jury, and one that likely doesn’t follow the news or know of the potential punishment.
It will never be stated to the jury, and technically no jury member is allowed to mention it if they do know it.
The terrorism charges on the other hand will be extremely difficult to prove. And that might be what frees him.
Edit: This comment has been corrected by the person below. The death penalty decision comes as a secondary trial after a defendant has been found guilty. Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/sentencing
That’s specifically not true if the death penalty is involved on a federal case. The jury has to unanimously agree on the death sentence. If they don’t, the accused can only receive life in prison.
And that’s a big problem with our system, in that if you happen to have the misfortune of being involved in a high profile case, you have to be judged by uninformed idiots.
Yeah, let’s jury select a bunch of hick ass yokels, who don’t read the news, who don’t know shit about anything, so we can convince them to vote the way we want.
Jury members are typically highly capable of reasoning and understanding as they are carefully chosen from a large pool of candidates. They tend to be highly educated professionals (for many reasons, not just because lawyers choose them) who just also happen to not closely follow news, politics, or be chronically online. They likely know about some guy killed a healthcare CEO a few months ago, but there knowledge of the situation is only surface level and not influenced by media biases. This makes them best able to form rational conclusions as a result of the trial.
Unfortunately, punishments (except the death penalty) may not be considered when determining guilt in trials by jury.
While it will be tough to find people who don’t know anything about this, the courts will be able to find an impartial jury, and one that likely doesn’t follow the news or know of the potential punishment.
It will never be stated to the jury, and technically no jury member is allowed to mention it if they do know it.
The terrorism charges on the other hand will be extremely difficult to prove. And that might be what frees him.
Edit: This comment has been corrected by the person below. The death penalty decision comes as a secondary trial after a defendant has been found guilty. Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/sentencing
That’s specifically not true if the death penalty is involved on a federal case. The jury has to unanimously agree on the death sentence. If they don’t, the accused can only receive life in prison.
https://www.justice.gov/archive/dag/pubdoc/deathpenaltystudy.htm
I did not know that. Thank you!
But apparently it is only after they are found guilty. So the death penalty is like a second trial.
https://www.justice.gov/usao/justice-101/sentencing
And that’s a big problem with our system, in that if you happen to have the misfortune of being involved in a high profile case, you have to be judged by uninformed idiots.
Yeah, let’s jury select a bunch of hick ass yokels, who don’t read the news, who don’t know shit about anything, so we can convince them to vote the way we want.
Is that really a jury of your peers? No.
Jury members are typically highly capable of reasoning and understanding as they are carefully chosen from a large pool of candidates. They tend to be highly educated professionals (for many reasons, not just because lawyers choose them) who just also happen to not closely follow news, politics, or be chronically online. They likely know about some guy killed a healthcare CEO a few months ago, but there knowledge of the situation is only surface level and not influenced by media biases. This makes them best able to form rational conclusions as a result of the trial.