Bean v. State

I join with Chief Justice Collins in his dissent, emphasizing the following points: It was forthrightly stated in Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 510 (1968), that the issue in that case was narrow, and I see the issue in this case in the same light. In Withespoon, the High Court placed its stamp of approval on a state’s right to exclude from the jury, in a capital case, those who say that they could never vote to impose the death penalty or that they would refuse even to consider its imposition in the case before them.

For a prospective juror to come within these categories of exclusion it…