Race, Gender, and Outcomes in First Degree Murder Cases

Gender, race, and formal court decision-making outcomes: Chivalry/paternalism, conflict theory or gender conflict?

“…The data also contained information on the murder incident itself as well as other legal factors, allowing for the inclusion of various controls for differences in case processing (e.g., arrest type, indictment charge, mode of conviction). Following prior research (see Baumer et al, 2000;Beaulieu & Messner, 1999;Williams & Flewelling, 1988) the present analysis was limited to homicide cases that involved only one victim and one offender in order to circumvent the various issues associated with examining incidents with numerous offenders and/or victims. The use of this exclusionary criteria as well as the elimination of cases that: (1) were not formally processed through to the sentencing phase, and/or (2) contained missing information on the variables of interest in the present study resulted in a total sample of 1,343 cases for examination.…”

“…Diagnostic tests indicated, however, that the correction factor was highly correlated with other predictors of empirical interest (e.g., offender prior record, jury trial, bench trial). Due to problems associated with multicollinearity between the correction factor and other predictors, and other potential dangers of including correction factors (for further discussion of these problems see Beaulieu & Messner, 1999;Hartman, 1991;Steffensmeier, Kramer, & Streifel, 1993;Stolzenberg & Relles, 1985, the results for all estimated models are presented without the correction factor.…”

A Multilevel Analysis of Community Effects on Criminal Sentencing

“…However, diagnostic tests indicate that the correction factor is highly correlated with other predictors of empirical interest (e.g., violent offense, criminal history). Because of the problems associated with multicollinearity between the correction factor and other predictors, and other potential dangers of including correction factors (for further discussion of these problems, see Beaulieu & Messner, 1999;Hartman, 1991;Steffensmeier et al, 1993;Stolzenberg & Relles, 1997), I present the results for all estimated models without the correction factor. four models for the jail versus non-custodial sanction contrast; and Panel C reports the results of the four models for the prison versus jail contrast.…”

“…To be sure, many researchers have speculated that the likelihood and severity of legal sanctions for criminal defendants might vary across communities, independent of defendant and case characteristics (see Beaulieu & Messner, 1999;Kautt, 2002;Ulmer, 1997;Wooldredge, 1998). Furthermore, recent research provides evidence that the application of "three strikes" laws-an example of a legislated sentencing practice-varies across California counties (Austin & Irwin, 2001).…”

Taking sides: Gender and third‐party partisanship in disputes

“…Sentences for convictions in Texas criminal courts were approximately 4 years longer (Curry, Lee, & Rodriguez, ), and the odds of death sentences in Georgia capital murder cases were two to three times higher (Williams, Demuth, & Holcomb, ) for offenders who victimized women. Furthermore, the tendency to punish men more severely when they victimize women is stronger for jurors than for judges or prosecutors (Baumer et al., ; Beaulieu & Messner, ). This pattern indicates that the tendency to punish men reflects “broader social judgments of citizens” rather than “discretion of legal agents” (Williams et al., , p. 868).…”