Dehumanizing Defendants: The Effect of Language on Capital Jurors’ Decisions

 Misleading Jury Instructions

In Texas, there are two distinct phases of capital murder trials: guilt/innocence and sentencing. Jurors are instructed that ten of them need to agree to sentence a guilty defendant to life in prison without possibility of parole. This is often known as Texas’s 12-10 rule. If only one juror destroys unanimity and objects to the death sentence, then the defendant will still be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Article 37 prevents the judge, state, defendant, and attorneys from instructing the jury and clarifying this default punishment. 

 

Texas’s 12 – 10 rule work to confuse and mislead jurors. Given the language used in jury sentencing charges, it is crucial to inform jurors that they alone determine the fate of the defendant. Because research has shown that confusion leads juries to choose death more often than not.

 

Since 2011, the Texas Legislature has considered changing these rules. The Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence released a report in 2019 recommending changes to Article 37 to eliminate juror confusion in capital sentencing. It was passed by the House, but it did not lead to change in the statute.

 

Dehumanizing the Defendant

 

Not only are the jury instructions unclear in Texas, but the language used throughout trial help jurors put up a wall between themselves and the defendant. A psychologist discovered that capital jurors try to establish an “empathic divide” between themselves and defendants. This is heightened as people during the trial dehumanize the defendant.

 

A researcher analyzed the language of various capital trials and noticed that defendants were constantly being referred to as “this/that guy” or “this/that defendant.” This language was seen all throughout trials as well as in jurors’ interviews. These generic terms deny a defendant’s identity as unique and identifiable thus dehumanizing him or her, which helps the jurors’ set aside their empathy.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged that capital jurors need to consider the individuality of each defendant in their sentencing decisions. However, jurors may be dissuaded from empathizing with an individual defendant due to language used, which makes it easier for them to ignore a defendant’s humanity. Many jurors do not take individual responsibility for sentencing defendants to death because of the language used in court. It is what they hear from attorneys, judges, and the instructions as written that allows them to decide quicker on such a severe sentence. 

In Caldwell v. Mississippi, the Supreme Court found it was unconstitutional for capital jurors to believe that the responsibility for a defendant’s death rests anywhere other than within themselves. Tberefore, people argue that “Texas’s framework” of minimizing jurors’ role in their sentencing decision violates the point made in Caldwell.