Federal Judicial Center -- 2004
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        F  Effects of Service on Jurors

Most judges we interviewed were not aware of any major emotional or psychological problems experienced by jurors who had served in their death-penalty cases. One judge heard "through the grapevine" that a juror was having problems of this nature after the trial had ended. Two judges who presided over cases in which the jury had not recommended a death sentence said that some of the jurors were very disturbed that the jury had not reached a unanimous decision to impose the death sentence. In one case, the jury had voted 11 to 1 in favor of the death penalty, and the eleven jurors who favored death told the judge that they had spent three days trying to persuade the remaining juror to vote for death. When this was not possible, and the jury did not recommend death, the eleven jurors were, according to the judge, "extremely upset," and asked the judge many questions about the procedures and "why one [juror] can thwart the wishes of eleven others."