A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing
Alberto Alesina, Eliana La Ferrara
American Economic Review · 2014 · Volume 104 · Issue 11
Abstract
We collect a new dataset on capital punishment in the US and we propose a test of racial bias based upon patterns of sentence reversals. We model the courts as minimizing type I and II errors. If trial courts were unbiased, conditional on defendants race the error rate should be independent of the victims race. Instead we uncover 3 and 9 percentage points higher reversal rates in Direct Appeal and Habeas Corpus cases, respectively, against minority defendants who killed whites. The pattern for white defendants is opposite but not statistically significant. This bias is confined to Southern States.
Keywords
Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants, Non-labor Discrimination, Litigation Process, Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
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