Hypotheses and Motivation: The hypothesis for the experiment here is meant to answer if race has an effect on the severity of a criminal federal murder sentence in the United States. The variables we look to answer this question are Race as defined by the United States Census Bureau and Severity of the punishment measured by the United States Sentencing Commission (US Census Bureau 2018; United States Sentencing Commission, 2016). To ensure that the test is as far away from a conformation bias is to set up the framing in two types of hypotheses. The null hypothesis would be there is no racial bias in judicial decisions involving murder cases within the federal jurisdiction of the United States. The alternative hypothesis is there is racial bias in judicial decisions involving murder cases within the federal jurisdiction of the United States. The study we have conducted is like that of the United States Sentencing Commission has conducted three separate times. Once in 2010 to follow up on guideline changes, a second time in 2012 and most recently in 2016. The test they conducted was to see if changes in standards of sentencing would lower disproportionate sentencing against Blacks (United States Sentencing Commission, 2018). They were able to see a change in the sentencing of women becoming equal but not enough change among men (United States Sentencing Commission, 2018). This study along with ours allows for judicial actors to adequately assess the role that race may play within a courtroom. If the findings show support for the null it can help these actors focus more in other aspects of a case for a defendant. If the null is found to be false, then it can show that race is something to watched when bringing a defendant to court. Description of Concepts, Data, and Measurement: The variables as mentioned above, are clearly defined by the United States federal government. Race, which is our independent variable, for example is defined into 6 sperate categories of White, Black or African American, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander and finally two or more races (US Census Bureau 2016). All these categories are defined by the Census Bureau in order to figure out the demographics of the nation as a whole (US Census Bureau 2016). This definition allows to be as accurate within the data we are examining. The second, which is our dependent variable, variable of Severity of punishment is provided by the Sentencing Commission. This definition comes from a department that creates the baseline of sentencing given for all crimes. This allows us to discuss the specifics of sentencing for the federal government when looking at murder cases (United States Sentencing Commission, 2018). By using this scale, we are able to make the timeline of sentencing as uniform when looking at the data (United States Sentencing Commission, 2018). The final factor that is not necessarily a variable but is crucial to the study is murder. The definition that we are looking at comes from the Penal Codes that all states utilize to decide how to charge defendants based on the crime they have committed18 (U.S. Code § 1111 – Murder, 2018). The independent variable of severity of punishment can be affected by the race because people of color can subject to implicit and explicit bias. This would mean that even if a defendant had all other factors of bias which is attempted to be controlled for by excluding jurors or judges from any relation of a case. By having this procedure in place, the defendant is protected by outward discrimination while at trial. While race is a factor that while at trial it is not necessarily possible for a court to control for a defendant’s race. Presentation of Analysis and Results: The method of our test had to do with looking at data that come from Oregon over 21-year period. This data allowed for a representative sample size of the population due to the fact that we had both genders, a wide range of ages and mix of races. From our set of data, we were able to compare races by assigning the value of 1 to white prisoners and a value of 2 to all other races. This allowed us to create a baseline of white people who are sentenced as the standard situation of being sentenced and the rest being people of color who may or may not be affected by their race. The next part of the was to look at sentencing in years for each case which just allowed us to look at all of the sentences of the defendants and compare them. Once we had both of these values, we were able to compare the data in a linear regression model. This allowed for the data to give an accurate average of the data when comparing the variables. The data after running a linear regression model showed that we would have to accept the null hypothesis. The model was able to show that there was only .11 when looking to race and sentencing and .10 when factoring in murder. This data while is not considered to be statistically significant enough does provide an avenue for judicial actors to suggest that race is a factor that should also be controlled for when adjudicating cases. When adjudicating a matter as serious as murder it is important that bias (implicit or otherwise) be checked when determining the guilt of a defendant. Works Cited
Berdejo, Carlos, and Yuchtman, Noam, "Crime, Punishment, and Politics: An Analysis of Political Cycles in Criminal Sentencing." Review of Economics and Statistics 95:3, 741-756. (2013). https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/TEW68X. Editors of the Legal Information Institute. “18 U.S. Code § 1111 - Murder.” Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1111. United States Census Bureau. “About Race,” United States Census Bureau, Jan 23, 2018. https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html. United States Sentencing Commission “Demographic Differences in Sentencing.” United States Sentencing Commission, Accessed Jan 24, 2018. https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/demographic-differences-sentencing. United States Sentencing Commission. “Offense Conduct,” United States Sentencing Commission, 54-55,Accessed Nov 23, 2016. https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manual/2016/CHAPTER_2.pdf.
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