Lockhart v. McCree

Three justices disagreed with the Court's ruling. Justice Marshall wrote the dissent, joined by Justice Brennan and Justice Stevens. In their opinion, the exclusion of death penalty opponents from a jury gave the prosecution an unfair advantage in the trial. They agreed with the lower courts' determination that juries which have been "death qualified" are more likely to convict.

The dissenters raised some other important issues as well. For one, they argued that "death qualification" results in a disproportionate number of minorities on juries, since minorities are more inclined to oppose the death penalty. Also, the dissenters refused to accept the majority's argument that the state has a right to obtain one jury for both the "guilt" and "penalty" phases of a capital trial. In the dissenters' view, this interest cannot be deemed more important than the right of the defendant to a fair trial under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The Court seemed to be switching gears in regard to its views on the allowance of death qualification for prospective jurors, as Lockhart v. McCree represented a modification of an earlier Supreme Court decision--the 1968 case of Witherspoon v. Illinois. In that case, the Court ruled that courts cannot select juries that are unusually willing to sentence a defendant to death. Thus, Lockhart v. McCree represents an important shift of direction in the appointing of jury members on murder trials.