The jurys role in the death penalty

While looking for things to post concerning juries, I found this article discussing how important the role of the juror is in deciding whether someone is sentenced the death penalty. The authors, Raoul Cantero and Robert Kline, discussed how there are two phases the jury goes for: the trial phase and the penalty phase. The trial phase is when the jury decides if the defendant is guilty or innocent of a capital crime. If the defendant is found guilty, the jury must go through the penalty phase to decide if the defendant deserves the death penalty. Thinking about the reality of this situation, the jury must carefully be selected. It would be a very hard task to decide that someone does not deserve the right to live. Psychologically, the jury must be strong mentally and emotionally to be able to handle this. For the defendant, it would be hard to handle that they will be dying. Both sides are affected greatly which is why the death penalty is not legal in all states. The article I was looking at mostly focused on Florida because they're the only state that only requires a simple majority to rule in favor of the death penalty. Below are the links where I found this information at.


Full article
 Introduction to article