Potter Stewart

“ But in Illinois, as in other States, [13] the jury is given broad discretion to decide whether or not death is 'the proper penalty' in a given case, and a juror's general views about capital punishment play an inevitable role in any such decision.
A man who opposes the death penalty, no less than one who favors it, can make the discretionary judgment entrusted to him by the State and can thus obey the oath he takes as a juror. But a jury from which all such men have been excluded cannot perform the task demanded of it. ”

“ The only justification the State has offered for the jury-selection technique it employed here is that individuals who express serious reservations about capital punishment cannot be relied upon to vote for it even when the laws of the State and the instructions of the trial judge would make death the proper penalty. ”

“ The data adduced by the petitioner, however, are too tentative and fragmentary to establish that jurors not opposed to the death penalty tend to favor the prosecution in the determination of guilt. [11] We simply cannot con clude, either on the basis of the record now before us or as a matter of judicial notice, that the exclusion of jurors opposed to capital punishment results in an unrepresentative jury on the issue of guilt or substantially increases the risk of conviction. ”

“ Any 'layman * * * (might) say he has scruples if he is somewhat unhappy about death sentences. * * * (Thus) a general question as to the presence of * * * reservations (or scruples) is far from the inquiry which separates those who would never vote for the ultimate penalty from those who would reserve it for the direct cases.' Id., at 308-309. Unless a venireman states unambiguously that he would automatically vote against the imposition of capital punishment no matter what the trial might reveal, it simply cannot be assumed that that is his position. ”

“ The most that can be demanded of a venireman in this regard is that he be willing to consider all of the penalties provided by state law, and that he not be irrevocably committed, before the trial has begun, to vote against the penalty of death regardless of the facts and circumstances that might emerge in the course of the proceedings. ”

“ Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 88 S.Ct. 254, 19 L.Ed.2d 336.
One of those requirements, at least, is that the decision whether a man deserves to live or die must be made on scales that are not deliberately tipped toward death. ”

“ State, 55 Miss. 410, 413-414: 'The declaration of the rejected jurors, in this case, amounted only to a statement that they would not like * * * a man to be hung. Few men would. Every right-thinking man would regard it as a painful duty to pronounce a verdict of death upon his fellow-man. ”