A defendant is much more likely to get a death sentence if he or she kills a “high-status” victim than if not, a study claims. The finding is based on a survey of 504 death penalty cases in Texas, the state with the highest rate of capital punishment in the United States.
“In the capital of capital punishment, death is more apt to be sought and imposed on behalf of high-status victims. Some victims matter more than others,” said University of Denver sociologist and criminologist Scott Phillips, author of the study.
The work appears in the research journal Law and Society Review.
Phillips, who analyzed death penalty cases from 1992 to 1999, found that a death sentence is most likely if a defendant kills a married, white or Hispanic victim with a clean criminal record and a college degree, as opposed to a single, black or Asian victim with a criminal record and no college degree.
The study is based on cases in Harris County, which is the state’s most populous county and also encompasses its largest city, Houston.
While recent debates over the death penalty have tended to focus on the problem of convicting the innocent and on costs, Phillips said arbitrariness has long been a concern.
Drawing on the same data, Phillips’ previous research found that black defendants were more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants. The racial disparities described in the prior paper become even sharper after accounting for victim social status – black defendants were more apt to be sentenced to death despite being less apt to kill high status victims, Phillips said.
