Show:
Miscarriages of Justice
Arbitrariness
Discrimination
Death Penalty Opinion/Future
100
What is the most referenced statistic for the amount of mistakes that lead to truly innocent people being placed on death rows awaiting (or actually facing) executions?
What is 5% (for example, 20 of the 349 DNA exonerations from the Innocence Project were off of Death Rows = ~5%)
100
Arbitrariness is punishments that are imposed (fill in the blank) whereas discrimination can be seen in punishments that are imposed (fill in the blank).
What is Arbitrariness is punishments that are imposed RANDOMLY whereas discrimination can be seen in punishments that are imposed DELIBERATELY.
100
Which possible form of discrimination uses a Bright Line Rule to say when it is/is not acceptable to execute this offender?
discrimination based on age
100
True or False: Based on the public opinion polls, at one point in the US history 100% of citizens supported the death penalty and believed it was an appropriate punishment for murderers.
What is False - support for the DP has never been above 80% (or below...?) on the public opinion polls
200
True or False: Borchard's first study examining wrongful convictions focused solely on people who were released from death rows.
What is false - this was the first work on the possibility of miscarriages of justice, and focused on the term broadly. It did discover a few cases that were removed from death rows, but that was not the intent nor focus of the research.
200
One example of arbitrariness can be seen in the rule changes imposed by the Court. Explain how rule changes show arbitrary imposition of the DP.
What is Imposing the DP may be different before/after a decision by the Court - For example in Roper v. Simmons the court ruled that the DP was unconstitutional for juveniles, however any juveniles who were sentenced before this date may have received the DP while those sentenced after could not have - this is a more random imposition of the DP based on a factor outside of the case itself.
200
Explain the Race of the Victim effect.
What is When the victim is White, the offender is more likely to get the death penalty, regardless of the race of the offender
200
Support for the DP has generally: a) increased over time, b) decreased over time, c) formed a wave-like pattern over time, or d) stayed the same over time
What is C - wave-like pattern
300
What are our 3 different definitions of innocence that can be used (and which is most common)?
What is 1) cases where the government officially admits error, 2) cases that have been officially exonerated because of evidence that the defendant was not involved (Factually innocent - most common), or 3) cases that were dismissed or found not guilty at retrial (legally innocent).
300
True or False Arbitrariness or discriminatory sentencing are always clear-cut (meaning they never overlap, no example could be used for both arbitrary and discriminatory).
What is False - sometimes example of arbitrary sentencing may be discriminatory, however we are unable to know the intent of the sentencing party.
300
The race of offender effect and race of victim effects are strongest with what race combination?
What is Black offender with a White victim
300
The Marshall Hypothesis says that more educated people will be less likely to support the death penalty (support will decrease as education increases). What is the one exception to the Marshall Hypothesis?
What is retribution - if a person endorses retribution as a motivation for the DP, then their support for the DP will not decrease regardless of increased education.
400
Explain the difference between Harmless and Prejudicial errors, as determined by the appeals court.
What is both situations involve admitted mistakes or errors that occurred during the original trial, but a harmless error is determined by the appeals court to NOT have influenced the ultimate outcome/decision in the trial (for example, the confession was elicited under duress and should not have been allowed into court, but the jurors would have convicted the guy anyways b/c of other evidence). A prejudicial error means the mistake likely did (according to the appeals court guess) impact the trial outcome and thus justifies redoing the trial or sentencing phase again.
400
What is important to remember when determining if a sentence is being imposed arbitrarily based on region? (what context might explain the sentencing being higher in 1 region than another?)
What is if the murder rates for that region are proportional to the amount of death sentences handed out, then the DP is not being imposed arbitrarily.
400
Explain discrimination based on the social class of the offender (hint - there were 2 examples of this we discussed in class).
What is 1) the way we've defined capital crimes as a society seem to favor higher SES people (murders associated with higher income jobs are not considered 'murder' whereas those associated with lower income people are). 2) the economic status of the offender is directly related to the amount of money he can pay for his attorney and we know public defenders are more likely to get the DP for their clients than hired private attorneys.
400
Does the wording of the DP support question matter? (If so, explain how)
What is Yes - the way you word the DP support question does matter. The more abstract, general wording of the question, the results show greater support. The more concrete, specific wording of the question, results show more moderate levels of support for the DP.
500
What was the name of the case brief discussed multiple times in class which demonstrated the high level of proof needed to consider claims of innocence made on appeal (after being convicted of the crime)?
What is Hererra v. Collins
500
True or False Appeals courts serve their purpose of removing the potential for arbitrary sentencing from our DP system.
What is False - appeals courts have their own source of arbitrariness that is put into the system.
500
Which 2 groups of decision makers are most responsible for the racial discrimination in our court system (according to the studies we discussed this semester)?
What is Prosecutors and juries
500
Explain polarization and biased assimilation in regards to the support for the Marshall Hypothesis.
What is polarization - most studies supported the 'more education = less DP support' finding, however some found evidence of polarization (education strengthened the participants initial beliefs about the DP, pushing them towards the extremes of opinion) biased assimilation - polarization likely occurred because participants interpreted the information they were getting during education in a biased manner. They took evidence that supported their belief at face value, but scrutinized the unsupportive evidence and then discarded it. Then overall, the 'education' they received strengthen their initial DP beliefs.