NCJ Number
179692
Journal
Chicago-Kent Law Review Volume: 73 Issue: 2 Dated: 1998 Pages: 533-558
Date Published
1998
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This essay examines race-of-the-victim effects in capital and non-capital cases from a positive, rather than a normative, perspective.
Abstract
A large body of research on race and capital sentencing indicates that the victim's race is a significant factor in the imposition of the death penalty. Part II of this essay examines these capital sentencing studies. These studies indicate that offenders alleged to have killed white victims are more likely to be charged with special circumstances that support the death penalty and are more likely to receive a death sentence than offenders alleged to have killed black victims. Whether the victim's race influences the determination of guilt in non-capital cases is not as clear. Studies that have examined juror-victim racial similarity and guilt attribution published prior to 1985 concluded that juror-victim racial similarity has a statistically significant effect on guilt attribution. Studies published after 1985 have reached the opposite conclusion. Part III summarizes the existing research on juror-victim racial similarity and guilt attribution. Part IV critiques the methodological design of these studies, concluding that additional research on juror-victim racial similarity and guilt attribution should be conducted. The author hypothesizes that racial differences in guilt attribution and punishment may arise less from the presence or absence of racial affinity between jurors and the defendant or victim than from the significantly different ways in which whites, blacks, and other minorities view their experiences and generalize from them. 137 footnotes