Year: 2005
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This study is an investigation of whether familial relationships among offenders and their victims affect capital sentencing. Using a sample of capital cases from North Carolina restricted to familial homicides, logistic regression models are used while controlling for legal and extra-legal factors that influence decision outcomes. Such models of capital sentencing are developed to (1) determine whether familial-victim cases have unique correlates; and (2) whether there are variations in the effects of these correlates across gender. Contradictory to these hypotheses, results suggest that acquaintance and stranger relationships are less likely to receive a capital outcome when compared to familial relationships. Therefore, in North Carolina it appears that familial relationships receive capital outcomes more frequently than other types of victimoffender relationships. Additionally, gender of both victim and offender, do not exhibit a statistically significant effect in North Carolina at the penalty processing phase of capital trials.
Author: Katharine Evans
Institution: University of South Florida
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W157493709