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Status Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Scott Phillips
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Abstract

Numerous studies have examined the influence of victim race on capital punishment, with a smaller number focused on victim gender. But death penalty scholars have largely ignored victim social status. Drawing on Black's (1976) multidimensional theoretical concept, the current research examines the impact of victim social status on the district attorney's decision to seek the death penalty and the jury's decision to impose a death sentence. The data include the population of cases indicted for capital murder in Harris County (Houston), Texas, from 1992 to 1999 (n=504). The findings suggest that victim social status has a robust influence on the ultimate state sanction: Death was more likely to be sought and imposed on behalf of high-status victims who were integrated, sophisticated, conventional, and respectable. The research also has implications beyond capital punishment. Because victim social status has rarely been investigated in the broader sentencing literature, Black's concept provides a theoretical tool that could be used to address such an important omission.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 807 - 838
Copyright
© 2009 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

I am indebted to Scott Durfee, chief counsel to the Harris County district attorney, who explained numerous office processes and provided archival data. I am also indebted to Kim Bohannon from the Harris County District Clerk's office, who made the research possible through assistance with the JIMS database. For providing comments on earlier versions of this manuscript, I thank Mark Cooney, Jim Coverdill, Jeff Lin, Lisa Pasko, Carroll Seron, and the anonymous reviewers. Most important, I could not have completed the project without help from the following undergraduate research assistants: Breck Garrett, Mor Regev, Shaefali Pillai Rogers, and Ivan Zapata.

References

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