Possibility of Death Sentence Has Divergent Effect on Verdicts for Black and White Defendants

Abstract:     
When anticipating the administration of the death penalty, mock jurors may be less inclined to convict defendants. Furthermore, minority defendants have been shown to be treated more punitively. We conducted a survey-embedded experiment with a nationally representative sample to examine the effect of sentence severity as a function of defendant race, presenting respondents with a triple murder trial summary, manipulating the maximum penalty (death vs. life without parole) and the race of the defendant. Respondents who were told life-without-parole was the maximum sentence were not significantly more likely to convict Black (67.7%) than White defendants (66.7%). However, when death was the maximum sentence, respondents presented with Black defendants were significantly more likely to convict (80.0%) than were those with White defendants (55.1%). The results implicate threats to civil rights and to effective criminal incapacitation.

Keywords: Sentence severity, prejudice, discrimination, capital punishment, legal decisionmaking

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