Bryce York
Hypothesis and motivation We believe that there is some variability in sentencing and believe in a bias possessed by judges, lawyers, and other actors in the court room. In this process we are looking specifically at the role race plays when a defendant is sentenced. As most Americans may be led to believe that crimes committed by anyone of any social status or race are punished equally, we are here to find disparity in that claim. In our case a null hypothesis would prove a lack of statistical significance in variation when comparing the length of a murder sentence and race is different cases. Studying how our legal system operates and being informed of the processes helps citizens understand the legal proceedings that they are subject to under United States federal law. Finding disparity and problems with fair sentencing in US Courts is the first step at correcting and repairing this system. Description of Concepts, Data, and Measurement The independent variable for this study is race which by the US Census Bureau includes: White American, Black or African American, Native American and Alaska Native, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, and Other. The dependent variable for this study is the length to which the defendants are sentenced for murder. Prior charges also play a role in sentencing and often result in longer sentences for people with multiple sentences. To accurately portray sentencing in the US for murder charges the cases studied should consist of only first-time offenders with no significant prior criminal history. Presentation of Analysis and Results After analysis the correlation between race and sentencing shows to be statistically significant while gender and sentencing as seen in Morgan’s analysis shows a much higher correlation. This means that we would have to accept our null hypothesis that race and sentencing for federal crimes has little correlation to the length of an individual’s criminal sentence. ANOVAa Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. 1 Regression 24282.744 1 24282.744 2.539 .111b Residual 320135731.793 33468 9565.428 Total 320160014.537 33469 2 Regression 1549612.774 2 774806.387 81.386 .000c Residual 318610401.763 33467 9520.136 Total 320160014.537 33469 a Dependent Variable: SentenceInYears b Predictors: (Constant), Race1 c Predictors: (Constant), Race1, Murder1 Coefficientsa Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig. B Std. Error Beta 1 (Constant) 15.835 .671 23.608 .000 Race1 1.770 1.111 .009 1.593 .111 2 (Constant) 14.564 .677 21.524 .000 Race1 1.820 1.108 .009 1.642 .101 Murder1 37.635 2.973 .069 12.658 .000 a Dependent Variable: SentenceInYears Works cited Carlin, Jerome E., and Howard, Jan. “Legal Representation and Class Justice” UCLA Law Review, vol. 12, no. 2, January 1965, p.381-437. HeinOnline https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/uclalr12&div=34&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals1 Kennedy, Edward, M. “Toward a System of Criminal Sentencing: Law with Order.” The American Criminal Law Review, vol. 6, no. 4, 1979, p. 353-382. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/amcrimlr16&id=367&collection=journals&index= US Census Bureau. “About Race.” About, United States Census Bureau, 23 Jan. 2018 https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html.
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