Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T14:58:49.115Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Principals and Accessories in Capital Felony-Murder: The Proportionality Principle Reigns Supreme

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Norman J. Finkel  and
Stefanie F. Smith
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In its 5–4 decision in Tison v. Arizona (1987), the Supreme Court put forth disputable empirical assertions about where community sentiment stood on the death penalty for felony-murder accessories. The Tison majority claimed that the community would support the death sentence for an accessory where (1) major participation and (2) reckless indifference to human life were shown. Two experiments were run to test these empirical assertions, and the results indicate quite the opposite. By a wide majority, community sentiment rejects the death penalty for such an accessory and rejects equal treatment of principal and accessory. Even beyond the death penalty question, to the issue of conviction under the felony-murder rule per se, attributions of causal and moral responsibility showed the principle of proportionality reigning supreme. Implications for how the Supreme Court goes about doing social science are discussed.

Type
Symposium: Research on the Death Penalty
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 27 , Issue 1 , 1993 , pp. 129 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

The authors wish to thank Sam Gross and Kevin Duff for their thoughtful suggestions.

References

References

Baldus, David. C., Pulaski, Charles, & Woodworth, George (1983) “Comparative Review of Death Sentences: An Empirical Study of the Georgia Experience,” 74 J. of Criminal Law & Criminology 661.Google Scholar
Baldus, David. C., Woodworth, George, & Pulaski, Charles A. Jr. (1985) “Monitoring and Evaluating Contemporary Death Sentencing Systems: Lessons from Georgia,” 18 U.C. Davis Law Rev. 1375.Google Scholar
Black, Henry Campbell (1979) Black's Law Dictionary. 5th ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.Google Scholar
Columbia Law Review (1965) “Note: Criminal Law: Felony-Murder Rule— Felon's Responsibility for Death of Accomplice,” 65 Columbia Law Rev. 1496.Google Scholar
Committee on Model Jury Instructions, Ninth Circuit (1985) Manual of Model Jury Instructions for the Ninth Circuit. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.Google Scholar
Dershowitz, Alan M. (1982) The Best Defense. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Devitt, Edward James, & Blackmar, Charles B. (1977) 2 Federal Jury Practice and Instructions: Civil and Criminal. 3d ed. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.Google Scholar
District Judges Association, Fifth Circuit. Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions (1983) Pattern Jury Instructions (Criminal Cases) with Case Annotations. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.Google Scholar
Dressier, Joshua (1979) “The Jurisprudence of Death by Another: Accessories and Capital Punishment,” 51 Univ. of Colorado Law Rev. 17.Google Scholar
Finkel, Norman J. (1990) “Capital Felony-Murder, Objective Indicia, and Community Sentiment,” 32 Arizona Law Rev. 819.Google Scholar
Finkel, Norman J., & Duff, Kevin B. (1991) “Felony-Murder and Community Sentiment: Testing the Supreme Court's Assertions,” 15 Law & Human Behavior 405.Google Scholar
Fletcher, George P. (1978) Rethinking Criminal Law. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Fox, James Alan, Radelet, Michael L., & Bonsteel, Julie L. (1990–91) “Death Penalty Opinion in the Post-Furman Years,” 18 New York Univ. Rev. of Law & Social Change 499.Google Scholar
Gross, Samuel, & Mauro, Robert (1989) Death and Discrimination: Racial Disparities in Capital Sentencing. Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Harvard Law Review (1986) “Note: Felony Murder: A Tort Law Reconceptualization,” 99 Harvard L. Rev. 1918.Google Scholar
Heider, Fritz (1958) The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, Irwin A. (1985) “The Effect of Jury Nullification Instruction on Verdicts and Jury Functioning in Criminal Trials,” 9 Law & Human Behavior 25.Google Scholar
Jones, Edward E., & Davis, Keith E. (1965) “From Acts to Dispositions: The Attribution Process in Person Perception,” in Berkowitz, L., ed., 2 Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kadane, Joseph B. (1984) “After Hovey: A Note on Taking Account of the Automatic Death Penalty Jurors,” 8 Law & Human Behavior 115.Google Scholar
Kelley, Harold H. (1967) “Attribution Theory in Social Psychology,” in Levine, D., ed., 15 Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Posner, Richard A. (1988) Law and Literature: A Misunderstood Relation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Rapaport, Elizabeth (1991) “The Death Penalty and Gender Discrimination,” 25 Law & Society Rev. 367.Google Scholar
Ross, Michael, & Fletcher, Garth J. O. (1985) “Attribution and Social Perception,” in Lindzey, G. & Aronson, E., eds., 2 Handbook of Social Psychology. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Roth, Nelson E., & Sundby, Scott E. (1985) “The Felony-Murder Rule: A Doctrine at Constitutional Crossroads,” 70 Cornell Law Rev. 446.Google Scholar
Stephen, J. F. (1883) History of the Criminal Law of England. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
U.S. Sentencing Commission (1990) Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.Google Scholar

Cases Cited

Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977).Google Scholar
Enmund v. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982).Google Scholar
Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978).Google Scholar
O'Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323 (1892).Google Scholar
People v. Aaron, 299 N.W.2d 304 (1980).Google Scholar
Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 (1979).Google Scholar
Solem v. Helm, 463 U.S. 277 (1983).Google Scholar
Stanford v. Kentucky, 492 U.S. 361 (1989).Google Scholar
Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987).Google Scholar
Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86 (1958).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349 (1910).Google Scholar