Evaluating Jury Comprehension of Illinois Capital-Sentencing Instructions

THIS PAPER CONSTITUTES A REPORT on a death-penalty case in which I served as an expert witness in an evidentiary hearing that was held to evaluate certain claims in the habeas corpus petition of one James P. Free, Jr. to Judge Marvin E. Aspen, District Judge of the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois.' To state the issue briefly, Mr. Freewho had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death-was arguing that his constitutional rights had been violated by the fundamental inadequacies of the instructions given to the jury in the sentencing phase of his trial. My role in this case, as a linguist, was to analyze the language of the jury instructions and answer this question: How well could that language have served its purpose of communicating clearly to the jury the legal concepts that they needed to understand for sentencing in a capital case?