Effect of Defendant Race on Criminal Sentencing

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Effect of Defendant Race on Criminal Sentencing

• Lauren Drew, Lindsay Ludwig, Amanda Nocton

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Introduction

• Current Issues
• CBS Article

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Literature Review

• Dion (2003)
• Social Dominance Theory
• Legitimizing myths
• Dovidio, Smith, Donnella Gaertner (1997)
• Aversive racism perspective

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Literature Review (cont.)

• Sommers and Ellsworth (2000,2001)
• Role of race in judicial proceedings
• Cochran and Chamlin (2006)
• Factors influencing sentencing
• Political affiliation

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Hypothesis

• Our study was designed to examine the effect of
  race on sentencing in a court of law.
• The African American defendant would receive a
  longer sentence than either the White man or the
  man who was not given a race

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Methods

• Online experiment
• 46 participants
• 54 female
• 3 participants were dropped because it appeared
  that they took the study more than once
• Participants were randomly assigned to read one
  of three stories

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Participants

• Ethnicities-
• White/Caucasian (87)
• Other (13)

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Case Number IN 06/23/42/8857 Incident
Automobile Accident Reporting Officer C. J.
Thomas Date of Report 21 August 2006
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• The incident occurred approximately at 747 pm
  Friday on the 21st of August 2006. Conditions
  were normal- no rain, snow or ice on the roads,
  and no significant amount of fog. James Lanum, a
  27 year old African American male who drove a
  1998 black Honda Accord was rounding the corner
  of Shuttle Street going 57 mph when he claims to
  have dropped a c.d. on the passenger's side
  floor. Attempting to recover the fallen item, he
  bent over to pick it up, taking his eyes off of
  the road momentarily.

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• When he looked back up he discovered that he was
  riding the middle of the road, about to have a
  head-on collision with an oncoming vehicle. James
  Lanum managed to turn the wheel and got off with
  just a side swipe. The driver of the approaching
  vehicle, a blue 2002 Plymouth Acclaim, also
  swerved in an attempt to avoid contact, but
  inevitably the car ran off the road, crashing
  into the side railing, flipping the car on its
  side. The airbags were set off upon impact, and
  the front windshield was shattered. Although all
  wore seatbelts, there were three fatalities as a
  result of this accident.

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• The bodies of the three passengers were later
  identified as Clayton Ford a 39 year old male,
  his wife Michelle Ford, 37, and their 4 year old
  son Tommy Ford. Neighbors stated the family was
  on their way to the grocery store.
• James Lanum was the sole survivor of the
  accident.
• Asked to sentence defendant
• 0-20 years

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Results and Discussion

• Sentences for the defendant did not differ
  significantly between the three stories, F (2,
  42) .817, p .449.
• Non-significant trend in average sentence
• Figure 1

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Figure 1
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Conclusion

• While our hypothesis that the African American
  defendant would receive a harsher sentence was
  not supported by our research, there were
  interesting trends that did appear to support our
  original beliefs.

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Limitations

• Homogenous population
• Mostly Caucasian/White
• Same age range
• Small sample size
• Participants might not have taken it seriously

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Importance of Research

• Racism in criminal sentencing is still a problem
  today
• Understanding factors that may influence
  sentencing can help ensure there is a fair trial