A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing

Alberto Alesina and Eliana La Ferrara

No 16981, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We propose a test of bias based upon patterns of judicial errors. We model the trial court as minimizing a weighted sum of type I and II errors. We define racial bias a situation where the weight depends on defendant/victim race. If the court is unbiased, the error rate should be independent of the combination defendant/victim race. We test this prediction using an original dataset on all capital appeals in 1973-1995. We find that in the first and last stage of appeal the probability of error is 3 and 9 percentage points higher for minority defendants who killed white (vs. minority) victims.

JEL-codes: K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law, nep-mic and nep-ure
Note: LE
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published as Alesina, Alberto, and Eliana La Ferrara. 2014. "A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing." American Economic Review, 104(11): 3397-3433.

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Related works:
Journal Article: A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing (2014)
Working Paper: A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing (2014)
Working Paper: A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing (2011)
Working Paper: A Test of Racial Bias in Capital Sentencing (2011)
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