RAND Study Finds No Federal Race Bias in Death Penalty From 1995 to 2000

A recent RAND Corporation study of the fed­er­al death penal­ty from 1995 to 2000 found no evi­dence of racial bias. Even though the inves­ti­ga­tors found that the death penal­ty was more often sought against defen­dants who mur­dered white vic­tims, researchers ulti­mate­ly con­clud­ed that the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the crime, and not the racial char­ac­ter­is­tics of the vic­tim or the defen­dant, could be used to make accu­rate pre­dic­tions of whether fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors would seek the death penal­ty. The RAND study exam­ined the files of 652 defen­dants who were charged with cap­i­tal offens­es while Janet Reno was U.S. Attorney General (between January 1, 1995 and July 31, 2000).

​“Our find­ings sup­port the idea that race was not a fac­tor in the deci­sion to seek the death penal­ty once we adjust­ed for the cir­cum­stance of the crime,” not­ed Stephen Klein, a RAND senior research sci­en­tist and co-leader of the project.

The authors of the study not­ed its limitations:

[T]he three teams agreed that their ana­lyt­ic meth­ods can­not pro­vide defin­i­tive answers about race effects in death-penal­ty cas­es. Analyses of obser­va­tion­al data can sup­port a the­sis and may be use­ful for that pur­pose, but such analy­ses can sel­dom prove or dis­prove cau­sa­tion.
…
In sum­ma­ry, giv­en the inher­ent prob­lems in using sta­tis­ti­cal mod­els under these cir­cum­stances, our results need to be inter­pret­ed cau­tious­ly. There are many rea­son­able ways to adjust for case char­ac­ter­is­tics, but no defin­i­tive way to choose one approach over anoth­er. Bias could occur at points in the process oth­er than the ones stud­ied, such as the deci­sion by fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors to take a case. Results could be dif­fer­ent with oth­er vari­ables, meth­ods, and cas­es. Extrapolating beyond the data we ana­lyzed here to oth­er years, oth­er defen­dants, oth­er points in the deci­sion­mak­ing process, or oth­er juris­dic­tions would be even more problematic.

(Executive Summary).

The RAND report notes that U.S. attor­ney offices in the South for­ward­ed the major­i­ty of the 652 cas­es sent to Reno for review, and this region account­ed for about half of the rec­om­men­da­tions to seek the death penal­ty. After review­ing the cas­es, Reno decid­ed to seek the death penal­ty for 25% of the 600 defen­dants she con­sid­ered. Approximately 50 defen­dants reached plea agree­ments after their cas­es were sub­mit­ted by U.S. attor­neys, but before the attor­ney gen­er­al made a deci­sion about whether to seek the death penal­ty. Most of the homi­cide cas­es that were stud­ied were with­in the same racial group. For exam­ple, white defen­dants were more like­ly to kill white vic­tims than African Americans or Hispanics.

(RAND Corporation Press Release, ​“RAND Study Finds No Evidence of Racial Bias in Federal Prosecutors’ Decisions to Seek Death Penalty From 1995 – 2000”). Read the study.

See Federal Death Penalty, Arbitrariness, and Race. At present, there are 44 defen­dants in the fed­er­al sys­tem who have received a death sen­tence – 59.1% are mem­bers of a minor­i­ty race. Most mur­ders in the U.S. do not enter into the fed­er­al sys­tem because a deci­sion is made to allow for state pros­e­cu­tion.