While this isn’t going to shock anybody, the likelihood of being sentenced to death has been found to correlate with the status of the victim, according to new research by Scott Phillips, associate professor of sociology and criminology at University of Denver. Via Medical News Today :
A defendant is much more likely to be sentenced to death if he or she kills a “high-status” victim, according to new research by Scott Phillips, associate professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Denver (DU).Naturally, the disparity in the application of the death penalty is further exacerbated by the race and status of the defendant as well, so that a poor single black accused of killing a married white with children and a job doesn’t stand a chance.
According to his research published in Law and Society Review, (43-4:807-837), the probability of being sentenced to death is much greater if a defendant kills a white or Hispanic victim who is married with a clean criminal record and a college degree, as opposed to a black or Asian victim who is single with a prior criminal record and no college degree.
And where does a sociologist go to conduct such a study? Well, science, like everyone else, employees the Willie Sutton method. They do to where the killings are:
“The concept of arbitrariness suggests that the relevant legal facts of a capital case cannot fully explain the outcome: irrelevant social facts also shape the ultimate state sanction” Phillips says. “In the capital of capital punishment, death is more apt to be sought and imposed on behalf of high status victims. Some victims matter more than others.”The capital of capital punishment. That’s the sort of thing one puts on the signs leading to town, with one of those revolving “population” wheels so that it can be accurate 24/7. Every locale needs something to generate local pride, and it is a catchy phrase.
Phillips research is based on 504 death penalty cases that occurred in Harris County, Texas between 1992 and 1999.
The validity of the study, unfortunately, is suspect for the same reason that Harris County made the study viable. It’s Harris County. The study couldn’t have been conducted in Rochester or Boston, Atlanta or Santa Clara. They don’t execute enough. The data pool is way to shallow to make it worth the bus ticket to get there.
But Harris County is another matter altogether. In a mere 7 years, there were 504 death penalty cases. Not exactly proof of general deterrence. The problem is that as soon as you find a place with that many murders, that many capital cases, that many defendants being charged, convicted and sentenced to death, as compared with the rest of the United States, you’ve already got an anomaly. There’s a reason Harris County is the capital of capital punishment, and it’s not because it’s working really well for them.
Oscar Wilde defined cynic as a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. In light of this study, that seems to be an awfully good description of the people of Harris County who think execution is a fine solution.
A while back, Mark Bennett, who happens to be a criminal defense lawyer in Harris County, explained to me, New York hick that I am, how the local temperament worked. Some people just “needed killin’.” That cuts both ways, applying both to the defendant who is charged with murder as well as the person who happened to be on the business end of a gun. It appears that there’s an invisible scale, a big one, big enough to put a man on either side. If the defendant is of higher status than the victim, a homeowner let’s say, while the victim is some nasty kid walking across his lawn, the balance tips in favor of the homeowner and should he pull out his shotgun and blow the kid’s head off, the homeowner wins. The kid needed killin’.
No reason to go through the various permutations of relative status. You get the point. The only thing clear is that in Harris County, they can place a price on every head, but can’t grasp the idea that every human life has value. It appears that Professor Phillips wasted his time studying Harris County, the capital of capital punishment. He could have gotten the same result by reading Oscar Wilde.
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This study reaches the same conclusion as the study at issue in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) 481 U.S. 279. (If readers Google “McCleskey v. Kemp,” the first result is a good Wikipedia summary of the case.)
In summary, despite the common notion that the race of the defendant makes the most difference in determining who will receive a death verdict, McCleskey shows that the race of the victim is much more determinative. Defendants charged with killing whites were 4.3 times more likely to receive death as defendants charged with killing blacks.
Until white men with college degrees start breaking into houses of uneducatated blacks and killing them in equal numbers, any studies on whom receives a death for murder is going to be irrelavant at best and dangerously skewed at worst.
WRT to capital punishment not being a general deterrant… Any punishment that is going to be solid general deterrant for murderers is likely not going pass the “cruel and unusual test.”
It doesn’t have to involve breaking into houses. Or at least their house. There’s always the neighbors house to defend, even if its while the “uneducated blacks” are running the other way.