Racial and Gender Threat and the Death Penalty: A County-Level Examination of Sociopolitical Factors Influencing Death Sentences

• Author: Margaret Schmuhl,Colleen E. Mills,Jason Silva,Joel Capellan
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/08874034221128939
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/08874034221128939

Criminal Justice Policy Review

2023, Vol. 34(2) 161 –183

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/08874034221128939

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Article

Racial and Gender Threat

and the Death Penalty: A

County-Level Examination

of Sociopolitical Factors

Influencing Death Sentences

Margaret Schmuhl1, Colleen E. Mills2,

Jason Silva3, and Joel Capellan4

Abstract

The death penalty is a local phenomenon with 15% of U.S. counties responsible for

passing death sentences since 1976. Although state-level research has contributed

a greater understanding of abolition and state-level factors surrounding the death

penalty, it remains crucially important to understand the sociopolitical context of

counties as key decision-makers in death penalty cases. Findings from our study suggest

that both racial and gender threats are important predictors of death sentences

within these communities. Specifically, counties with Black populations greater than

the state median experience increases in all death sentences, while gender equality

in education produces an ameliorative effect on death sentencing. The persistence

of extralegal factors, especially racial bias, influencing death sentencing suggests that

these relationships be carefully considered in the research and administration of

capital sentencing.

Keywords

punishment, racial threat, sentencing, gender equality, death penalty

1State University of New York at Oswego, USA

2The Pennsylvania State University, Abington, USA

3William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, USA

4Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Margaret Schmuhl, Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Justice, State University of New York at

Oswego, 7060 State Route 104, Oswego, NY 13126-3599, USA.

Email: margaret.schmuhl@oswego.edu

1128939CJPXXX10.1177/08874034221128939Criminal Justice Policy ReviewSchmuhl et al.

research-article2022

162 Criminal Justice Policy Review 34(2)

Introduction

The death penalty is a local phenomenon. Since the death penalty was reinstated in

1976, death sentences have stemmed from just 15% of counties in the United States

(Death Penalty Information Center, 2021). Yet, death penalty research in the United

States often relies on state-level comparisons, as well as case-level comparisons of

legal and extralegal factors (Jacobs & Carmichael, 2004; Jacobs et al., 2005; Williams

& Holcomb, 2001, 2004). State-level studies of the death penalty have examined

social and political factors predicting abolition (Jacobs & Carmichael, 2002), death

sentences (Jacobs & Carmichael, 2004; Jacobs et al., 2005; McCann, 2008), and exe-

cutions (Poveda, 2006). These studies find racial threat, political conservatism, and

social threat tend to be common explanations for the use of the death penalty (Jacobs

& Carmichael, 2004; Jacobs et al., 2005; McCann, 2008). Despite these advances in

scholarly understanding of state-level death penalty predictors, limited research has

provided county-level examinations of this hyper-localized phenomenon.

Importantly, the prosecutors who seek the death penalty, and the jurors who sentence

a person to death, are often determined at the county-level (Eisenberg, 2005). This sug-

gests death penalty research would benefit from more nuanced examinations of county-

level predictors. A few studies have considered the county-level social and political

factors that influence the imposition of the death penalty (Eisenberg, 2005; Garrett

et al., 2017; Harmon & McCord, 2019; Poveda, 2006). However, these studies largely

focus on a single state (Poveda, 2006), or a few states (Eisenberg, 2005). Focusing on

case-level outcomes, one study has examined nationwide death eligible cases (N =

1,665) and their respective county-level indicators (Harmon & McCord, 2019).

However, research has not examined the social and political county-level characteris-

tics predicting the use and frequency of death sentences across all counties. In addition,

research on the death penalty has neglected the role of gender equality at the county

level. This is surprising because research has long held that gender is an important

determinant in both support for and use of the death penalty (Cochran & Sanders, 2009;

Songer & Unah, 2006; Williams et al., 2007). One study examining executions interna-

tionally found an increase in women’s representation in legislative bodies significantly

decreased the use of executions within and between countries (Schmuhl et al., 2018).

Knowing that the death penalty is a local phenomenon with great variation across

counties, it is important to understand the sociopolitical context of such communities

and the role it may play in determining a county’s propensity to pass a death sentence.

Utilizing a pooled cross-sectional design, the current study examines the social and

political county-level factors related to the number of death sentences, as well as the

number of Black death sentences, passed by each county in the United States from

years 2012 to 2016 using a zero-inflated negative binomial regression.

Literature Review

As noted, most of the research on death sentences and the death penalty are analyzed

at the state-level (Jacobs & Carmichael, 2004; Jacobs et al., 2005; McCann, 2008).