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Restorying the Defendant's Life

Abstract Research identifies prejudices that operate in juries in death penalty cases involving defendants from minority groups. Jury bias is a likely manifestation of unconscious intrapsychic and institutionalized racism originating in cultural dominance and manifested as “White privilege.” Consequently, the likelihood that the fate of death penalty defendants from minority groups is decided by either juries “of their peers” or actual representatives of community standards is highly suspect in death penalty cases. This article describes and advocates use of a social work intervention, the narrative, in capital trials. Focusing on death penalty cases involving African American defendants from lower socio-economic strata, where justice problems stand in boldest relief, this article explains how use of narratives could (1) prove therapeutic for defendants; (2) encourage jurors' self-awareness, in turn, mitigating bias and prejudice; (3) add to a trend toward therapeutic jurisprudence; and (4) encourage a systemically more humane judicial response to death penalty defendants.