Scott Phillips, a soci­ol­o­gy and crim­i­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sor at the University of Denver, pub­lished a study last month in the Law & Society Review focus­ing on the impo­si­tion of death sen­tences in rela­tion to the vic­tim’s social sta­tus. Phillips stud­ied cap­i­tal cas­es in Harris County (Houston), Texas, between 1992 and 1999 and found that the social sta­tus of the vic­tim in the under­ly­ing mur­der had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on whether the death penal­ty would be sought and imposed on the defen­dant. In exam­in­ing 504 cas­es, Phillips found that defen­dants are six times more like­ly to receive a death sen­tence if they kill the high­est sta­tus vic­tims (whites or Hispanics who have col­lege degrees, are mar­ried, and have no crim­i­nal record), com­pared to those defen­dants who kill the low­est sta­tus vic­tims (black or Asian vic­tims who were sin­gle, with a pri­or crim­i­nal record, and no college degree).

In a pre­vi­ous study of the same 504 cas­es, Phillips found that defen­dants who are con­vict­ed of cap­i­tal mur­der were more like­ly to get the death penal­ty in Harris County when defend­ed by court-appoint­ed coun­sel, com­pared with those who hired pri­vate lawyers to rep­re­sent them for the entire case.

(S. Phillips, ​“Status Disparities in the Capital of Capital Punishment,” 43 Law & Society Review 807 (2009); see P. O’Hare, ​“Study fig­ures odds of killer get­ting death: Victim’s race and mar­i­tal sta­tus seem to play role in cas­es,” Houston Chronicle, March 5, 2010). See also Arbitrariness and Race.

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