Hugo Black

“ A person who has conscientious or religious scruples against capital punishment will seldom if ever vote to impose the death penalty. This is just human nature, and no amount of semantic camouflage can cover it up. In the same manner, I would not dream of foisting on a criminal defendant a juror who admitted that he had conscientious or religious scruples against not inflicting the death sentence on any person convicted of murder (a juror who claims, for example, that he adheres literally to the Biblical admonition of 'an eye for an eye') . ”

“ It seems particularly unfortunate to me that this Court feels called upon to charge that Justice Schaefer and his associates would let a man go to his death after the trial court had contrived a 'hanging jury' and, in this Court's language, 'stacked the deck' to bring about the death sentence for petitioner. With all due deference it seems to me that one might much more appropriately charge that this Court has today written the law in such a way that the States are being forced to try their murder cases with biased juries. ”

“ Scruples against the death penalty are commonly the result of a deep religious conviction or a profound philosophical commitment developed after much soul-searching. The holders of such scruples must necessarily recoil from the prospect of making possible what they regard as immoral. ”