Hostname: page-component-669899f699-chc8l Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T02:36:40.210Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mapping the Racial Bias of the White Male Capital Juror: Jury Composition and the “Empathic Divide”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Mona Lynch  and
Craig Haney
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the nature of racial bias in the death sentencing process. After reviewing the various general explanations for the continued significance of race in capital cases, we report the results of an empirical study in which some aspects of racially biased death sentencing are examined in depth. Specifically, in a simulated capital penalty-phase trial setting where participants were assigned to small group “juries” and given an opportunity to deliberate, white male jurors were significantly more likely to sentence black defendants to death than were women and nonwhite jurors. This racialized pattern was explained in part by the differential evaluation of the case facts and the perceptions of the defendant that were made by the white male jurors. We discuss these findings in light of social psychological theories of contemporary racism, and we conclude that the demonstrated bias in capital jury settings should be understood as an interaction of several factors, including individual juror characteristics, group-level demographic composition, and group deliberation processes.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 69 - 102
Copyright
© 2011 Law and Society Association.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

This research was generously supported by the National Science Foundation's Law and Social Science Program. We are indebted to the Law & Society Review editors and to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and invaluable suggestions.

References

References

Amodio, David, & Devine, Patricia (2006) “Stereotyping and Evaluation in Implicit Race Bias: Evidence for Independent Constructs and Unique Effects on Behavior,” 91 J. of Personality and Social Psychology 652–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arthur, John A. (1998) “Racial Attitudes and Opinions About Capital Punishment: Preliminary Findings,” 22 International J. of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 131–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldus, David, Woodworth, George, & Pulaski, Charles (1990) Equal Justice and the Death Penalty: A Legal Empirical Analysis. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Baldus, David, Woodworth, George, Zuckerman, David, et al. (1998) “Racial Discrimination and the Death Penalty in the Post-Furman Era: An Empirical and Legal Overview, With Recent Findings From Philadelphia,” 83 Cornell Law Rev. 1638–770.Google Scholar
Bandura, Albert (1989) “Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement,” in Reich, W., ed., Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Banner, Stuart (2002) The Death Penalty: An American History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkan, Steven E., & Cohn, Steven (1994) “Racial Prejudice and Support for the Death Penalty by Whites,” 31 J. of Research in Crime and Delinquency 202–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, Sandra L. (1997) “Practicing What You Preach: An Analysis of Racial Attitudes of Two Christian Churches,” 21 Western J. of Black Studies 1–11.Google Scholar
Bernard, J. L. (1979) “Interaction Between Race of Defendant and That of Jurors in Determining Verdicts,” 5 Law and Psychology Rev. 103–11.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence D., & Johnson, Devon (2004) “A Taste for Punishment: Black and White Americans' Views on the Death Penalty and the War on Drugs,” 1 Du Bois Rev.: Social Science Research on Race 151–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bodenhausen, Galen (1988) “Stereotypic Biases in Social Decision Making and Memory: Testing Process Models of Stereotypic Use,” 55 J. of Personality and Social Psychology 726–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bodenhausen, Galen, & Lichtenstein, Meryl (1987) “Social Stereotypes and Information Processing Strategies: The Impact of Task Complexity,” 52 J. of Personality and Social Psychology 871–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bodenhausen, Galen, & Wyer, Robert (1985) “Effects of Stereotypes on Decision-Making and Information-Processing Strategies,” 48 J. of Personality and Social Psychology 267–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo (1997) “Rethinking Racism: Toward a Structural Interpretation,” 62 American Sociological Rev. 465–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowers, William, & Pierce, Glenn (1980) “Arbitrariness and Discrimination Under post-Furman Capital Statutes,” 26 Crime & Delinquency 563–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowers, William, et al. (2001) “Death Sentencing in Black and White: An Empirical Analysis of the Role of Jurors' Race and Jury Racial Composition,” 3 University of Pennsylvania J. of Constitutional Law 171–274.Google Scholar
Bushway, Shawn, & Piehl, Anne Morrison (2001) “Judging Judicial Discretion: Legal Factors and Racial Discrimination in Sentencing,” 35 Law & Society Rev. 733–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devine, Patricia (1989) “Stereotypes and Prejudice: Their Automatic and Controlled Components,” 56 J. of Personality and Social Psychology 5–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Devine, Patricia, & Elliot, Andrew (1995) “Are Racial Stereotypes Really Fading? The Princeton Trilogy Revisited,” 21 Personality and Social Psychology Bull. 1139–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dovidio, John (2001) “On the Nature of Contemporary Prejudice: The Third Wave,” 57 J. of Social Issues 821–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dovidio, John, et al. (1989) “Resistance to Affirmative Action: The Implication of Aversive Racism,” in Blanchard, F. & Crosby, F., eds., Affirmative Action in Perspective. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Eberhardt, Jennifer, et al. (2006) “Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital Sentencing Outcomes,” 17 Psychological Science 383–6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eisenberg, Theodore, & Wells, Martin (1993) “Deadly Confusion: Juror Instructions in Capital Cases,” 79 Cornell Law Rev. 1–52.Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Theodore, et al. (1996) “Jury Responsibility in Capital Sentencing: An Empirical Study,” 44 Buffalo Law Rev. 339–81.Google Scholar
Emerson, Michael, et al. (1999) “Equal in Christ, but Not in the World: White Conservative Protestants and Explanations of Black-White Inequality,” 46 Social Problems 398–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everett, Ronald, & Wojtkiewicz, Roger (2002) “Difference, Disparity, and Race/Ethnic Bias in Federal Sentencing,” 18 J. of Quantitative Criminology 189–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Filkins, Joseph, et al. (1998) “An Evaluation of the Biasing Effects of Death Qualification: A Meta-Analytic/Computer Simulation Approach,” in Tindale, R. S. et al., eds., Theory and Research on Small Groups. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Fiske, Susan, & Taylor, Shelley (1991) Social Cognition, 2d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin (2004) Jurors' Stories of Death: How America's Death Penalty Invests in Inequality. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fukurai, Hiroshi, et al. (1993) Race in the Jury Box: Affirmative Action in Jury Selection. New York: Springer-Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaertner, Samuel & Dovidio, John (1986) “The Aversive Form of Racism,” in Dovidio, J. & Gaertner, S., eds., Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism: Theory and Research. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gaertner, Samuel & Dovidio, John (2005) “Understanding and Addressing Contemporary Racism: From Aversive Racism to the Common Ingroup Identity Model,” 61 J. of Social Issues 615–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garvey, Stephen (2000) “The Emotional Economy of Capital Sentencing,” 75 New York University Law Rev. 26–73.Google Scholar
Gordon, Randall (1990) “Attributions for Blue-Collar and White-Collar Crime: The Effects of Subject and Defendant Race on Simulated Juror Decisions,” 20 J. of Applied Social Psychology 971–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, Sandra, & Lowery, Brian (2004) “Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes About Adolescent Offenders,” 28 Law and Human Behavior 483–504.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gross, Samuel (1998) “Update: American Public Opinion on the Death Penalty—It's Getting Personal,” 83 Cornell Law Rev. 1448–75.Google Scholar
Gross, Samuel, & Mauro, Robert (1984) “Patterns of Death: An Analysis of Racial Disparities in Capital Sentencing and Homicide Victimization,” 37 Stanford Law Rev. 27–153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gross, Samuel, & Mauro, Robert (1989) Death and Discrimination: Racial Disparities in Capital Sentencing. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Haney, Craig (1995) “The Social Context of Capital Murder: Social Histories and the Logic of Capital Mitigation,” 35 Santa Clara Law Rev. 547–609.Google Scholar
Haney, Craig (2004) “Condemning the Other in Death Penalty Trials: Biographical Racism, Structural Mitigation, and the Empathic Divide,” 53 DePaul Law Rev. 1557–89.Google Scholar
Haney, Craig (2005) Death by Design: Capital Punishment as a Social Psychological System. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Haney, Craig (2008) “Evolving Standards of Decency: Advancing the Nature and Logic of Capital Mitigation,” 36 Hofstra Law Rev. 835–82.Google Scholar
Haney, Craig, & Hurtado, Aida (1994) “The Jurisprudence of Race and Meritocracy: Standardized Testing and ‘Race Neutral’ Racism in the Workplace,” 18 Law and Human Behavior 223–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haney, Craig, & Lynch, Mona (1994) “Comprehending Life and Death Matters: A Preliminary Study of California's Capital Penalty Instructions,” 18 Law and Human Behavior 411–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haney, Craig, & Lynch, Mona (1997) “Clarifying Life and Death Matters: An Analysis of Instructional Comprehension and Penalty Phase Closing Arguments,” 21 Law and Human Behavior 575–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haney, Craig, et al. (1994) “‘Modern’ Death Qualification: New Data on Its Biasing Effects,” 18 Law and Human Behavior 619–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haney López, Ian (2000) “Institutional Racism: Judicial Conduct and a New Theory of Racial Discrimination,” 109 Yale Law Rev. 1717–884.Google Scholar
Haney López, Ian, ed. (2006) Race, Law and Society. Surrey, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Hans, Valerie (2007) “Deliberation and Dissent: ‘12 Angry Men’ versus the Empirical Reality of Juries,” 82 Chicago-Kent Law Rev. 579–89.Google Scholar
Hill, Erick, & Pfeifer, Jeffrey (1992) “Nullification Instructions and Juror Guilt Ratings: An Examination of Modern Racism,” 16 Contemporary Social Psychology 6–10.Google Scholar
Hodson, Gordon, et al. (2004) “The Aversive Form of Racism,” in Chin, J., ed., The Psychology of Prejudice and Racism: Racism in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Hurwitz, Jon, & Peffley, Mark (1997) “Public Perceptions of Race and Crime: The Role of Racial Stereotypes,” 41 American J. of Political Science 375–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Christopher S., & Kaplan, Martin (2003) “The Effects of Racially Stereotypical Crimes on Juror Decision-Making and Information-Processing Strategies,” 25 Basic and Applied Social Psychology 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kautt, Paula (2009) “Heuristic Influences Over Offense Seriousness Calculations: A Multilevel Investigation of Racial Disparity Under Sentencing Guidelines,” 11 Punishment and Society 191–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawakami, Kerry, et al. (1998) “Racial Prejudice and Stereotype Activation,” 24 Personality and Social Psychology Bull. 407–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krieger, Linda (1995) “The Content of Our Categories: A Cognitive Bias Approach to Discrimination and Equal Employment Opportunity,” 47 Stanford Law Rev. 1161–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linder, Douglas (1996) “Juror Empathy and Race,” 63 Tennessee Law Rev. 887–916.Google Scholar
Luginbuhl, James, & Burkhead, Michael (1994) “Sources of Bias and Arbitrariness in the Capital Trial,” 50 J. of Social Issues 103–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Mona (2006) “Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Life and Death Decision-Making: Lessons From Laypersons in an Experimental Setting,” in Sarat, A. & Ogletree, C., eds., From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty. New York: New York Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lynch, Mona, & Haney, Craig (2000) “Discrimination and Instructional Comprehension: Guided Discretion, Racial Bias, and the Death Penalty,” 24 Law and Human Behavior 337–58.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynch, Mona, & Haney, Craig (2009) “Capital Jury Deliberation: Effects on Death Sentencing, Comprehension, and Discrimination,” 33 Law and Human Behavior 481–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Massey, Douglas S. (2007) Categorically Unequal. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Mazzella, Ronald, & Feingold, Alan (1994) “The Effects of Physical Attractiveness, Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Gender of Defendants and Victims on Judgments of Mock Jurors: A Meta-Analysis,” 24 J. of Applied Social Psychology 1315–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meertens, Roel, & Pettigrew, Thomas (1997) “Is Subtle Prejudice Really Prejudice?” 61 Public Opinion Q. 54–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Ojmarrh (2005) “A Meta-Analysis of Race and Sentencing Research: Explaining the Inconsistencies,” 21 J. of Quantitative Criminology 439–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paternoster, Raymond, & Brame, Robert (2003) “An Empirical Analysis of Maryland's Death Sentencing System With Respect to the Influence of Race and Legal Jurisdiction: Final Report,” http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/pdf/finalrep.pdf (accessed 15 May 2009).Google Scholar
Peffley, Mark, & Hurwitz, Jon (2002) “The Racial Components of “Race-neutral” Crime Policy Attitudes,” 23 Political Psychology 59–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, Thomas, & Meertens, Roel (1995) “Subtle and Blatant Prejudice in Western Europe,” 25 European J. of Social Psychology 57–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pfeifer, Jeffrey, & Ogloff, James (1991) “Ambiguity and Guilt Determinations: A Modern Racism Perspective,” 21 J. of Applied Social Psychology 1713–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quillian, Lincoln, & Pager, Devah (2001) “Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime,” 107 American J. of Sociology 717–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Radelet, Michael, & Pierce, Glenn (1985) “Race and Prosecutorial Discretion in Homicide Cases,” 19 Law & Society Rev. 587–622.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rector, Neil, et al. (1993) “The Effect of Prejudice and Judicial Ambiguity on Defendant Guilt Ratings,” 133 J. of Social Psychology 651–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandys, Marla, & Dillehay, Ronald (1995) “First Ballot Votes, Predeliberation Dispositions, and Final Verdicts in Jury Trials,” 19 Law and Human Behavior 175–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandys, Marla, & Scott McClelland, M. (1998) “Stacking the Deck for Guilt and Death: The Failure of Death Qualification to Ensure Impartiality,” in Acker, J. et al., eds., America's Experiment With Capital Punishment: Reflections on the Past, Present, and Future of the Ultimate Penal Sanction. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.Google Scholar
Scheepers, Daan, et al. (2006) “Diversity in In-Group Bias: Structural Factors, Situational Features, and Social Functions,” 90 J. of Personality and Social Psychology 944–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shaked-Schroer, Netta, et al. (2008) “Reducing Racial Bias in the Penalty Phase of Capital Trials,” 26 Behavioral Sciences and the Law 603–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sommers, Samuel (2007) “Race and the Decision Making of Juries,” 12 Legal and Criminological Psychology 171–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommers, Samuel, & Ellsworth, Phoebe (2001) “White Racial Bias: An Investigation of Prejudice Against Black Defendants in the American Courtroom,” 7 Psychology, Public Policy and Law 201–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sommers, Samuel, & Michael Norton, M. (2008) “Race and Jury Selection: Psychological Perspectives on the Peremptory Challenge Debate,” 63 American Psychologist 527–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Soss, Joe, et al. (2003) “Why Do White Americans Support the Death Penalty?” 65 J. of Politics 397–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steen, Sara, et al. (2005) “Images of Danger and Culpability: Racial Stereotyping, Case Processing and Criminal Sentencing,” 43 Criminology 435–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steffensmeier, Darrell, & Demuth, Stephen (2000) “Ethnicity and Sentencing Outcomes in US Federal Courts: Who Is Punished More Harshly?” 65 American Sociological Rev. 705–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweeney, Laura, & Haney, Craig (1992) “The Influence of Race on Sentencing: A Meta-Analytic Review of Experimental Studies,” 10 Behavioral Science and the Law 179–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, Henri (1982) “Social Psychology of Inter-Group Relations,” 33 Annual Rev. of Social Psychology 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tiersma, Peter (1995) “Dictionaries and Death: Do Capital Jurors Understand Mitigation?” 1995 Utah Law Rev. 1–49.Google Scholar
Trubek, David (1990) “Back to the Future: The Short, Happy Life of the Law and Society Movement,” 18 Florida State University Law Rev. 1–55.Google Scholar
Unnever, James D., & Cullen, Francis T. (2007) “The Racial Divide in Support for the Death Penalty: Does White Racism Matter?” 85 Social Forces 1281–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Government Accounting Office (1990) Death Penalty Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Discrimination. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office (February), http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat11/140845.pdf (accessed 6 Dec. 2010).Google Scholar
Wacquant, Loic (2000) “The New ‘Peculiar Institution’: On the Prison as Surrogate Ghetto,” 4 Theoretical Criminology 377–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, Geoff, et al. (2009) “Does Racial Balance in Workforce Representation Yield Equal Justice? Race Relations of Sentencing in Federal Court Organizations,” 43 Law & Society Rev. 757–806.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiener, Richard, et al. (1995) “Comprehensibility of Approved Jury Instructions in Capital Murder Cases,” 80 J. of Applied Psychology 455–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziesel, Hans (1981) “Race Bias in the Administration of the Death Penalty: The Florida Experience,” 95 Harvard Law Rev. 456–68.Google Scholar

Cases Cited

Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).Google Scholar
McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).Google Scholar
Miller-El v. Dretke, 545 U.S. 231 (2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snyder v. Louisiana, 128 S. Ct. 1203 (2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar