This research is a 24 month extension of a study of decision-making by sentencing jurors in capital cases. The current project is designed to examine a recent constitutional development that promises to alter both the content and tone of sentencing hearings in capital cases. In Payne v. Tennessee (1991) the U.S. Supreme Court held that personal characteristics of the victim and the emotional impact of the crime on the victim's family, friends and community can be presented to sentencing jurors. Since prior holdings of the Court had excluded such information, Payne, therefore, changed the rules that determine what information jurors could hear in the sentencing phase of capital cases. The ruling came at the very end of the sampling time frame for the original study. This timing affords a unique opportunity to study the possible effects on juror decision processes of allowing jurors to hear emotional "victim impact" testimony. Interviews will be conducted with a sample of 360 jurors (four randomly selected jurors each) from 90 trials conducted since the Payne ruling became effective. In addition to the juror interviews, the prosecuting and defense attorneys who tried these cases will be interviewed and transcripts of the sentencing phase of the trials will be obtained for data on the character of the evidence and arguments to which jurors were exposed, and other data on the proceedings for comparison and statistical control. Completed interviews with jurors from 360 cases tried under the prior evidentiary rules will serve as the baseline for assessing the effects of Payne on sentencing behavior. The same interviewing procedures and instruments covering juror sentencing decisions will be used for comparability between the pre- and post-Payne cases.
