A recent Arizona Legal Studies paper on mur­der cas­es in Missouri found both geo­graph­i­cal and racial dis­par­i­ties in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty. ​“Life and Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion and Capital Punishment in Missouri,” by Katherine Barnes of Arizona University Law School, and David Sloss and Stephen Thaman of St. Louis Univeristy Law School, stud­ied 1046 cas­es of inten­tion­al homi­cide in Missouri to deter­mine geo­graph­i­cal and racial effects in the rates at which pros­e­cu­tors seek the death penal­ty. With respect to race, the researchers found that ​“defen­dants who kill white vic­tims [were] sen­tenced to death more often than those who kill black vic­tims.” Regarding geo­graph­i­cal dif­fer­ences, the study con­clud­ed, ​“The data show that pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al deci­sions vary wide­ly across coun­ties.”

The researchers found that at least 76% of the cas­es they stud­ied were death-eli­gi­ble, but pros­e­cu­tors only sought death in 5% of the cas­es. Prosecutors in dif­fer­ent coun­ties exer­cise their dis­cre­tion very dif­fer­ent­ly, which leads to racial and sig­nif­i­cant geo­graph­i­cal vari­a­tions in cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing across the state. The researchers stat­ed:

For exam­ple, St. Louis City and Jackson County (Kansas City) are the two largest juris­dic­tions in Missouri in terms of the num­ber of homi­cide pros­e­cu­tions. Prosecutors in St. Louis City charged (first-degree mur­der) M1 in 85.4 per­cent of their cas­es. In con­trast, pros­e­cu­tors in Jackson County charged (first-degree mur­der) M1 in only 28.3 per­cent of their cas­es. Because cas­es charged as (sec­ond degree) M2 are not eli­gi­ble for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Jackson County pros­e­cu­tors elim­i­nat­ed more than sev­en­ty per­cent of their cas­es from the class of death-eli­gi­ble offens­es by charg­ing the cas­es as (sec­ond degree) M2 instead of (first degree) M1. In con­trast, the ini­tial charg­ing deci­sions of St. Louis City pros­e­cu­tors left the death penal­ty ​“on the table” in more than 85 per­cent of their cas­es.

The researchers con­clud­ed that ​“The pre­ced­ing analy­sis sug­gests that the defen­dants who are sen­tenced to death in Missouri are not nec­es­sar­i­ly the most cul­pa­ble, or those who com­mit the most seri­ous crimes. Instead, the defen­dants who are sen­tenced to death are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly those who com­mit their crimes in coun­ties where pros­e­cu­tors make aggres­sive use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” They rec­om­mend that Missouri fur­ther study its death penal­ty sys­tem so that the state can imple­ment changes in the dis­trict attor­ney sys­tem to bet­ter guide pros­e­cu­tors and to also reform, change, or aban­don cer­tain statu­to­ry aggra­vat­ing fac­tors.
(“Life and Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion and Capital Punishment in Missouri,” by Katherine Barnes, David Sloss and Stephen Thaman, Arizona Legal Studies Discussion Paper No. 08 – 03, March 2008). See Studies and Arbitrariness.

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