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"Death penalty is impossible to fairly administer," is the title of New Hampshire attorney Andru Volinsky's OpEd in the Sunday Corcord Monitor. A death penalty trial is a battle for the jury's focus. The prosecutors, who must prove the elements of their case, necessarily draw the jury's focus to the often unspeakable act of murder and to the suffering of the victim. The defense tries to humanize the defendant or, failing this, tries to convince the jury that the cause of the defendant's inhumanity is a suffering to which the jury can relate. The defendant may have been abused as a child, for example, and the focus is then drawn by the defense to the abuser and the defendant's suffering. Although the advocates may not realize they are doing it, the battle to gain control of the jury's focus is the primary struggle in the trial because both sides ultimately believe that a juror will not vote to kill someone who is viewed as being like that juror...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on April 07, 2009 (boomark / email).