Are you "Death Qualified"?
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2025546050_apxdeathpenaltyjuries.html
Death-qualified' juror search slows marathon, theater cases
One prospective juror was brutally frank when asked whether he could consider a sentence of life in prison for the man accused of bombing the Boston Marathon. "I would sentence him to death," he said, then added: "I can't imagine any evidence that would change how I feel about what happened."
Another prospective juror said he couldn't even consider the death penalty, telling the court, "I just can't kill another person."
The two men are on opposite sides of the capital punishment debate, but both unlikely to make it on the jury for the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: to be seated for a death penalty case a juror must be willing -- but not eager -- to hand down a sentence of either life or death.
The process of finding "death qualified" jurors has slowed down jury selection in federal case against Tsarnaev, who is charged with setting off two bombs that killed three people and injured more than 260 during the 2013 marathon. It is expected to do the same in the state trial of James Holmes, the man accused of killing 12 people and injuring 70 others in a suburban Denver movie theater in 2012.
"The law says that certain kinds of aggravated murders should get the death penalty," he said. "Jurors have to be willing to listen to the evidence and have to be willing to impose the death penalty if, in their judgment, the crime was sufficiently heinous to call for the death penalty."
