Prior research on the role of race in wrongful capital convictions has focused primarily on the race of the defendant. In contrast, this article begins with two case studies that illustrate the impact of the race of the defendant and also the race of the victim in contributing to erroneous convictions. The second section of this article identifies the race of the defendant and the victim in 82 cases where prisoners were released from death row because of doubts about their guilt and in a matched group of inmates who were executed. Through the use of three logistic regression models, the combination of the race of the defendant and the race of the victim is identified as a significant predictor of case outcome (exoneration vs. execution). The results also indicate that an indirect relationship may exist between the combination of the race of the defendant and the victim, the strength of the evidence, and case outcome.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Associated Press. (2003, March 4). Pennsylvania committee recommends moratorium on death penalty. Retrieved February 7, 2004, from http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/04/death.penalty.ap/index.html.
2.
Baldus, D. C., Woodworth, G., & Pulaski, C. A. (1990). Equal justice and the death penalty: A legal and empirical analysis. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
3.
Baldus, D. C., Woodworth, G., Zuckerman, D., Weiner, N. A., & Broffitt, B. (1998). Race discrimination and the death penalty in the post-Furman era: An empirical and legal analysis with recent findings from Philadelphia. Cornell Law Review, 83, 1638-1770.
4.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986).
5.
Bedau, H. A., & Radelet, M. L. (1987). Miscarriages of justice in potentially capital cases. Stanford Law Review, 40, 21-179.
6.
Bedau, H. A., & Radelet, M. L. (1988). The myth of infallibility: A reply to Markman and Cassell. Stanford Law Review, 41, 161-170.
7.
Borchard, E. (1932). Convicting the innocent: Sixty-five actual errors of criminal justice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
8.
Davies, N. (1991). White lies. London, UK: Chatto and Windus.
9.
Earley, P. (1995). Circumstantial evidence: Death, life, and justice in a southern town. New York: Bantam Books.
10.
Ex Parte Brandley, 781 S.W.2d 886 (Tex.Cr.App. 1989).
11.
Frank, J., & Frank, B. (1957). Not guilty. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
12.
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972).
13.
Gardner, E. S. (1952). The court of last resort. New York: William Sloane Associates.
14.
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976).
15.
Gross, S. R. (1996). Risks of death: Why erroneous convictions are common in capital cases. Buffalo Law Review, 44, 469-500.
16.
Harmon, T. (2001). Predictors of miscarriages of justice in capital cases. Justice Quarterly, 18, 949-968.
17.
Herbert, B. (2002, May 13). Who gets the death penalty?New York Times, p. 17.
18.
Hosmer, D. W., & Lemeshow, S. (1989). Applied logistic regression. New York: Wiley.
19.
Huff, R. C., Rattner, A., & Sagarin, E. (1996). Convicted but innocent. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
20.
Keil, T. J., & Vito, G. (1995). Race and the death penalty in Kentucky murder trials: 1976-1991. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 20, 17-36.
21.
Liebman, J. S., Fagan, J., Gelman, A., West, V., Davies, G., & Kiss, A. (2002). A broken system, Part II: Why there is so much error in capital cases, and what can be done about it. Retrieved July 15, 2002, from http://justice.policy.net/cjreform/dpstudy/.
22.
Liebman, J. S., Fagan, J., & West, V. (2000). A broken system: Error rates in capital cases: 1973-1995. Retrieved July 15, 2002, from http://justice.policy.net/cjedfund/jpreport/.
23.
Liptak, A. (2003, January 8). Death penalty found more likely when victim is white. New York Times, p. A12.
24.
Markman, S. J., & Cassell, P. G. (1988). Protecting the innocent: A response to the Bedau-Radelet study. Stanford Law Review, 41, 121-160.
25.
McGautha v. California, 402 U.S. 183 (1971).
26.
McMillian v. State, 616 So.2d 933 (Ala.Cr.App. 1993).
27.
National Center for State Courts. (1989). Error in criminal appeals: Three papers on understanding reversible appeals. Williamsburg, VA: State Justice Institute.
28.
Parker, K. F., Dewees, M. A., & Radelet, M. L. (2001). Racial bias and the conviction of the innocent. In S. D. Westervelt & J. A. Humphrey (Eds.), Wrongly convicted. Perspectives on failed justice (pp. 114-131). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
29.
Radelet, M. L., Bedau, H. A., & Putnam, C. E. (1992). In spite of innocence: Erroneous convictions in capital cases. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
30.
Radelet, M. L., Lofquist, W. S., & Bedau, H. A. (1996). Prisoners released from death rows since 1970 because of doubts about their guilt. Cooley Law Review, 13, 907-966.
31.
Radelet, M. L., & Pierce, G. L. (1991). Choosing those who will die: Race and the death penalty in Florida. Florida Law Review, 43, 1-34.
32.
Radelet, M. L., & Vandiver, M. (1983). The Florida Supreme Court and death penalty appeals. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 74, 913-926.
33.
Radin, E. D. (1964). The innocents. New York: William Morrow.
34.
Scheck, B., Neufeld, P., & Dwyer, J. (2000). Actual innocence: Five days to execution and other dispatches from the wrongly convicted. New York: Doubleday.
35.
State v. Marshall, 613 A.2d 1059 (N.J.Sup.Ct. 1992).
36.
Wilgoren, J. (2003, January 12). Citing issue of fairness, governor clears out death row in Illinois. New York Times, p. 1.
37.
Wolfgang, M. E., & Riedel, M. (1976). Rape, racial discrimination, and the death penalty. In H. A. Bedau & C. M. Pierce (Eds.), Capital punishment in the United States (pp. 99-121). New York: AMS Press.
