NCJ Number
134288
Journal
Florida Law Review Volume: 43 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1991) Pages: 1-34
Date Published
1991
Length
34 pages
Annotation
Data on the 368 Florida homicides and death sentences for which complete records were available from 1976 through 1987 were analyzed to determine whether race influences contemporary sentences of capital punishment in Florida.
Abstract
The study used the procedures previously used by Gross and Mauro and thus represented an update of their research. Results confirmed earlier studies indicating that the defendant's race and the victim's race are both strong predictors of who receives clemency and who is executed. Although death sentences were rarely imposed, cases with white victims were almost six times more likely than those with black victims to involve a death sentence. In addition, black defendants who killed white victims were more than twice as likely to receive a death sentence than were white defendants who killed white victims. Moreover, black defendants who killed white victims were 15 times more likely to be sentenced to death than were black defendants who killed black victims. The research controlled for the most plausible variables that might have explained the correlations between race and sentencing, suggesting the inappropriateness of rejecting the hypothesis that victim-based racial discrimination permeates contemporary death sentencing in Florida. Tables and footnotes