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This paper examines the cases of 1017 homicide defendants in Florida. Two main data sources are used: the police department's classification of the case, as found in the FBI's Supplemental Homicide Reports, and the prosecutor's classification, as determined by court records. Each data set characterizes the homicide as involving felonious circumstances, possible felonious circumstances, or nonfelonious circumstances. Attention is focused on cases that differ in their police and prosecutorial classifications. Results indicate that differences in these classifications are related to defendant's and victim's race, with blacks accused of killing whites the most likely to be “upgraded” and the least likely to be “downgraded.” The process of upgrading is then shown to significantly increase the likelihood of the imposition of a death sentence in cases with white victims where no plea bargain is offered.

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This article examines the relationship between status and law in general and race and the death penalty in particular. It focuses on cases in which whites have been executed for crimes against blacks. The goals of the article are to (1) determine the frequency of such cases, and (2) interpret the role of status characteristics (other than race) in explaining why the executions occurred. Records of 15,978 American executions were reviewed, and 30 relevant cases were identified. While the findings appear anomalous when race alone is used to explain death sentencing, the use of more general measures of status to explain such events supports sociological interpretations of the relation between law and status.

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