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Death Sentence in Georgia, 1974-1987: Criminal Justice or Racial Justice

NCJ Number
117583
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 16 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1989) Pages: 139-154
Author(s)
A B Heilbrun Jr; A Foster; J Golden
Date Published
1989
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Background information gathered from the prison files of 243 male convicts in Georgia formed the basis for an analysis of sentencing procedures by whether convicted criminals were awarded the death penalty because they were more dangerous and whether racial bias determined if a convict received the death penalty or life sentence.
Abstract
The convicts studied included 54 black and 55 white death-penalty murderers and randomly selected 71 black and 63 white life-sentence murderers. Five investigators rated the prisoners on a four-point antisociality measure applied to nine criteria in the prisoner's social history. The antisociality measure, supplemented with IQ scores formed the dangerousness index for the study. Analysis of the results confirmed the imbalance in death penalty decisions for black men, especially if the victim was white. However, the criminal dangerousness analysis revealed that the more dangerous criminal received the death penalty regardless of the race of the victim or murderer. The study concluded that mitigating circumstances, such as the relationship between murderer and victim, and not racial bias was a factor in determining the sentence. Tables and 13 references. (Publisher abstract modified)

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