RT Article
T1 ‘Ideal victims’ in capital penalty hearings: an assessment of victim impact evidence and sentencing outcomes
JF Journal of crime and justice
VO 43
IS 1
SP 93
OP 109
A1 Kleinstuber, Ross
A2 Zaykowski, Heather V.
A2 McDonough, Caitlin
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1777165709
AB Critics have argued that victim impact evidence (VIE) may enhance sentencing biases by encouraging judges and juries to treat some types of victims as worthier than others. Yet, research to date has not utilized trial transcripts to assess differences in the quantity and quality of evidence presented. The current study addresses this gap by utilizing transcripts from Delaware capital sentencing hearings (2001-2011). The results indicated that more VIE witnesses were called and a greater amount of VIE was presented when victims aligned more closely with the cultural stereotype of the ‘ideal victim.’ ‘Ideal victims’ were also more likely to be described as having contributed to the community and to be associated with the judge issuing a death sentence. However, VIE itself, what witnesses said about victims and their characters, was not correlated with sentencing outcomes. These findings suggest that victim attributes rather than VIE may be driving sentencing bias.
K1 Victim impact evidence
K1 Capital Punishment
K1 Ideal victims
K1 Sentencing bias
DO 10.1080/0735648X.2019.1588770