Possibility of death sentence has divergent effect on verdicts for Black and White defendants

When anticipating the imposition of the death penalty, jurors may be less inclined to convict defendants. On the other hand, minority defendants have been shown to be treated more punitively, particularly in capital cases. Given that the influence of anticipated sentence severity on verdicts may vary as a function of defendant race, the goal of this study was to test the independent and interactive effects of these factors. We conducted a survey-embedded experiment with a nationally representative sample to examine the effect on verdicts of sentence severity as a function of defendant race, presenting respondents with a triple murder trial summary that manipulated the maximum penalty (death vs. life without parole) and the race of the defendant. Respondents who were told life-without-parole was the maximum sentence were not significantly more likely to convict Black (67.7%) than White (66.7%) defendants. However, when death was the maximum sentence, respondents presented with Black defendants were significantly more likely to convict (80.0%) than were those with White defendants (55.1%). The results indicate that the death penalty may be a cause of racial disparities in criminal justice, and implicate threats to civil rights and to effective criminal justice.