Effects of a mandatory death penalty on the decisions of simulated jurors as a function of heinousness of the crime

Abstract

The influence of a mandatory death penalty on the verdicts of simulated jurors was assessed. Seventy male and 81 female subjects read a description of a trial involving either a gang war murder or the heinous murder of a child. A guilty verdict carried with it either a prison term or a mandatory death penalty. Given equivalent evidence against the defendant, subjects rendered guilty verdicts significantly less frequently when the sentence was the death penalty than when it was a prison term. However, the influence of the death penalty in decreasing the likelihood of a guilty verdict was defendent on the nature of the crime. The difference in frequency of guilty verdicts was significant in the gang-war-murder condition but was not significant in the heinous-murder condition. Conviction rates in the imprisonment condition were unaffected by the nature of the crime.