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Activity Number:
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105
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Type:
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Contributed
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Date/Time:
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Monday, August 7, 2006 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
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Sponsor:
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Social Statistics Section
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| Abstract - #305778 |
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Title:
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Is There Evidence of Racial Bias for the Federal Death Sentence?
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Author(s):
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Matthias Schonlau*+
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Companies:
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RAND Corporation
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Address:
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201 N. Craig Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213,
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Keywords:
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capital punishment ; causality ; prediction
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Abstract:
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In addition to the death penalty laws in various states, there is also a federal death penalty. Most death sentences are handed down under state law; there have been few studies of the federal death penalty. Key concepts in this line of research are "capriciousness" and "arbitrariness." "Capriciousness" means (roughly) that the sentencing decisions occur at random and cannot be predicted from the characteristics of the legal case. "Arbitrariness" means that the sentencing decisions are influenced by a characteristic other than the severity of the case. Such a characteristic might be, for example, race of the victim. I will give results from a study that analyzed data from 1988 to 2000.
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- The address information is for the authors that have a + after their name.
- Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.
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