IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/empleg/v12y2015i1p70-99.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Death Penalty: Should the Judge or the Jury Decide Who Dies?

Author

Listed:
  • Valerie P. Hans
  • John H. Blume
  • Theodore Eisenberg
  • Amelia Courtney Hritz
  • Sheri Lynn Johnson
  • Caisa Elizabeth Royer
  • Martin T. Wells

Abstract

This article addresses the effect of judge versus jury decision making through analysis of a database of all capital sentencing phase hearing trials in the State of Delaware from 1977–2007. Over the three decades of the study, Delaware shifted responsibility for death penalty sentencing from the jury to the judge. Currently, Delaware is one of the handful of states that gives the judge the final decision‐making authority in capital trials. Controlling for a number of legally relevant and other predictor variables, we find that the shift to judge sentencing significantly increased the number of death sentences. Statutory aggravating factors, stranger homicides, and the victim's gender also increased the likelihood of a death sentence, as did the county of the homicide. We reflect on the implications of these results for debates about the constitutionality of judge sentencing in capital cases.

Suggested Citation

  • Valerie P. Hans & John H. Blume & Theodore Eisenberg & Amelia Courtney Hritz & Sheri Lynn Johnson & Caisa Elizabeth Royer & Martin T. Wells, 2015. "The Death Penalty: Should the Judge or the Jury Decide Who Dies?," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 12(1), pages 70-99, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:12:y:2015:i:1:p:70-99
    DOI: 10.1111/jels.12065
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/jels.12065
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jels.12065?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:empleg:v:12:y:2015:i:1:p:70-99. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1740-1461 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.