The role of death qualification in venirepersons' evaluations of aggravating and mitigating circumstances in capital trials

Death qualification is a part of voir dire that is unique to capital trials. Unlike all other litigation, capital jurors must affirm their willingness to impose both legal standards (either life in prison or the death penalty). Jurors who assert they are able to do so are deemed “death-qualified” and are eligible for capital jury service: jurors who assert that they are unable to do so are deemed “excludable” or “scrupled” and are barred from hearing a death penalty case. During the penalty phase in capital trials, death-qualified jurors weigh the aggravators (i.e., arguments for death) against the mitigators (i.e., arguments for life) in order to determine the sentence. If the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances, then the jury is to recommend death; if the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances, then the jury is to recommend life. The jury is free to weigh each aggravating and mitigating circumstance in any matter they see fit. Previous research has found that death qualification impacts jurors' receptiveness to aggravating and mitigating circumstances (e.g., Luginbuhl & Middendorf, 1988). However, these studies utilized the now-defunct Witherspoon rule and did not include a case scenario for participants to reference. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether death qualification affects jurors' endorsements of aggravating and mitigating circumstances when Witt, rather than Witherspoon, is the legal standard for death qualification. Four hundred and fifty venirepersons from the 11 th Judicial Circuit in Miami, Florida completed a booklet of stimulus materials that contained the following: two death qualification questions; a case scenario that included a summary of the guilt and penalty phases of a capital case; a 26-item measure that required participants to endorse aggravators, nonstatutory mitigators, and statutory mitigators on a 6-point Likert scale; and standard demographic questions. Results indicated that death-qualified venirepersons, when compared to excludables, were more likely to endorse aggravating circumstances. Excludable participants, when compared to death-qualified venirepersons, were more likely to endorse nonstatutory mitigators. There was no significant difference between death-qualified and excludable venirepersons with respect to their endorsement of 6 out of 7 statutory mitigators. It would appear that the Furman v. Georgia (1972) decision to declare the death penalty unconstitutional is frustrated by the Lockhart v. McCree (1986) affirmation of death qualification. ^

The impact of pre -training interventions on cognitive, skill, and affective learning outcomes: A meta -analytic examination of four decades of research

Technological advancements and the ever-evolving demands of a global marketplace may have changed the way in which training is designed, implemented, and even managed, but the ultimate goal of organizational training programs remains the same: to facilitate learning of a knowledge, skill, or other outcome that will yield improvement in employee performance on the job and within the organization (Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000; Tannenbaum & Yukl, 1992). Studies of organizational training have suggested medium to large effect sizes for the impact of training on employee learning (e.g., Arthur, Bennett, Edens, & Bell, 2003; Burke & Day, 1986). However, learning may be differentially affected by such factors as the (1) level and type of preparation provided prior to training, (2) targeted learning outcome, (3) training methods employed, and (4) content and goals of training (e.g., Baldwin & Ford, 1988). A variety of pre-training interventions have been identified as having the potential to enhance learning from training and practice (Cannon-Bowers, Rhodenizer, Salas, & Bowers, 1998). Numerous individual studies have been conducted examining the impact of one or more of these pre-training interventions on learning. ^ I conducted a meta-analytic examination of the effect of these pre-training interventions on cognitive, skill, and affective learning. Results compiled from 359 independent studies (total N = 37,038) reveal consistent positive effects for the role of pre-training interventions in enhancing learning. In most cases, the provision of a pre-training intervention explained approximately 5–10% of the variance in learning, and in some cases, explained up to 40–50% of variance in learning. Overall attentional advice and meta-cognitive strategies (as compared with advance organizers, goal orientation, and preparatory information) seem to result in the most consistent learning gains. Discussion focuses on the most beneficial match between an intervention and the learning outcome of interest, the most effective format of these interventions, and the most appropriate circumstances under which these interventions should be utilized. Also highlighted are the implications of these results for practice, as well as propositions for important avenues for future research. ^