Abstract
This study evaluates aspects of newspaper reporting about death penalty cases and capital defendants. In a content analysis of newspaper coverage of a representative sample of 26 death penalty‐eligible defendants who were brought to trial in California, we found that articles tended to cite primarily from law enforcement and prosecutorial sources, focused very heavily on the characteristics of the crime, and omitted or de‐emphasized most other aspects of the case. News coverage generally failed to place the criminal behavior of the defendant in any social historical or contextual framework from which readers (as potential voters and jurors) could grasp the potential mitigating elements of the case. We conclude that newspaper coverage of capital crimes may influence public support for the death penalty, and undermine public appreciation of the role of social contextual factors in crime causation in general. It also may bias the perspective with which potential jurors approach specific capital trials and even contribute to the lack of instructional comprehension that has been found to plague the death sentencing process.