The universe of cases consisted of all persons (with complete data) indicted for murder in Kentucky between December 22, 1976, the effective date of Kentucky's capital punishment statute, and October 1, 1986, who were convicted and sentenced to prison under a death sentence or lesser sentence. The final research sample consisted of persons indicted for murder in a case with at least one statutorily prescribed aggravating circumstance and sentenced to prison, as long as a death sentence was a possibility. Among these cases, there were 104 death qualified juries and 35 death sentences. Data on the offenses and the offenders were collected from institutional files compiled and maintained by the Kentucky Corrections Cabinet. The effect of several indicators of the heinousness of the crime and an estimate of the effect of the racial composite variable 'black kills white' (BKW) were constructed and estimated. Although the composite variable of the races of the offender and victim did not apparently influence jury decisions and sentencing, the BKW variable did influence prosecutors' decisions to pursue capital prosecutions. In Kentucky, blacks who kill whites have a generally greater risk of arriving on death row than other murderers in part because they are more likely to face a jury empowered to consider a death sentence. 6 tables, 115 footnotes.