About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

78 Marq. L. Rev. 791 (1994-1995)
The Legal Legacy of John Wayne Gacy: The Irrebuttable Presumption That Juries Understand and Follow Jury Instructions

handle is hein.journals/marqlr78 and id is 799 raw text is: THE LEGAL LEGACY OF JOHN WAYNE GACY: THE IRREBUTTABLE PRESUMPTION THAT JURIES UNDERSTAND AND FOLLOW JURY INSTRUCTIONS KIMBALL R. ANDERSON* AND BRUCE R. BRAUN** Both in life and death, John Wayne Gacy left a profound mark on the fabric of American life and the American legal system. The startling news of the former clown's thirty-four murders and their grisly and hor- rific details-previously unimaginable to a public yet to be exposed to the macabre deeds of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer-forced society to confront the deepest depths of the human spirit and the moral soundness of a civilization in which the unthinkable becomes reality. Gacy left an equally penetrating and perhaps longer-lasting mark on the legal system. His federal habeas corpus petition, which marked his last attempt to stave off the executioner's sword, forced the federal judi- ciary to confront the realities and inherent weaknesses of a judicial sys- tem in which a jury, tethered to the rule of law only by the judge's instructions on the law, determines who will live and who will die. When Gacy presented the federal courts with compelling empirical data ad- dressing the fundamental issue of whether capital sentencing juries com- prehend the complex and arcane pattern death penalty instructions given them by state trial courts, the federal courts refused to declare the obvious: that juries do not (indeed cannot) comprehend the pattern in- structions. Although it characterized the instructions as polysyllabic mystification, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Cir- cuit, through Judge Frank Easterbrook, cast a blind judicial eye towards empirical evidence of the incomprehensibility of the instructions and created and adopted an irrebuttable presumption that jurors compre- hend jury instructions. This article addresses and analyzes this absolute and irrebuttable pre- sumption that jurors follow their instructions. Specifically, it discusses * B.A., University of Illinois, 1974; J.D., University of Illinois, 1977. Mr. Anderson is a partner at Winston & Strawn in Chicago. ** B.A., Haverford College, 1985; J.D., University of Virginia School of Law, 1989. Mr. Braun is an associate at Winston & Strawn in Chicago.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most