Letters to the Editor: Why death penalty opponents don’t belong on juries for capital cases

To the editor: Columnist Nicholas Goldberg argues that prospective jurors who acknowledge that they would never vote for a death sentence should not be excluded from serving on a jury charged with deciding between a sentence of life imprisonment and a death sentence.

This, of course, would result in juries that included people who have made up their minds before the presentation of any evidence or arguments from the representing attorneys. This goes against the very rationale for our adversarial system of criminal justice.

I am quite sure Goldberg would not condone empaneling jurors who said that they would support a death sentence in every case, no matter what the evidence supported. No one should serve on a jury unless they are persuadable by the facts of a case and committed to following the law.

Peter Marston, Glendale

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To the editor: Wouldn’t the jury for Parkland, Fla., mass killer Nikolas Cruz be “stacked” if some jurors said they opposed the death penalty? Is that what Goldberg wants?

Just because jurors don’t oppose the death penalty in all circumstances does not mean they’ll impose it in a particular case.

N.E. Byrne, Santa Barbara