Abstract
Prior studies have revealed that wrongful conviction may affect people’s view of the death penalty. But few of them explained why people who believed innocent people were executed still supported the death penalty. This study proposes that what matters may not be whether respondents believed that wrongful convictions existed or not, but rather their beliefs about the frequency of it. It examines how different estimates of the rate of wrongful conviction, rather than general concerns of innocence, affect views about capital punishment. Using Gallup data in three years, I found that people’s perceived wrongful conviction rates were negatively associated with support for the death penalty. The mediation analyses show that perceived wrongful conviction rate fully mediated the effect of being Black on death penalty support in all three years of observation. This research indicates quantifying the risk of wrongful convictions plays an important role in understanding people’s death penalty support.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The National Registry of Exonerations and the Death Penalty Information Center reported different numbers of death row exonerations because they used different criteria for exoneration. A person is considered as an exoneree by NRE if there is an active official action (like pardon, acquittal, or dismissal) declaring his or her innocence. A passive official action (like not seeking a re-trial) does not count for NRE but counts for DPIC. NRE explains that an exoneration requires a reversal and then a dismissal or acquittal based on evidence of innocence not originally presented at the trial or guilty plea. DPIC does not require the additional fact of new evidence. For details, see NRE Glossary (The National Registry of Exonerations, 2020b) and DPIC Innocence Database (The Death Penalty Information Center, 2020a). The Innocence Project only reports DNA exonerations.
I also estimated the models using multinomial logistic regression where the dependent variable is categorical including “oppose” (the reference outcome), “favor,” and “don’t know” (available upon request). The conclusion still holds that people who perceived a higher wrongful conviction rate were significantly less likely to support the death penalty than to oppose it.
In the 2000 dataset, researchers have to combine two questions (Q22 & Q23) to create one single measurement for perceived wrongful conviction rate. In the 2003 and 2005 datasets, these two questions have been combined and perceived wrongful conviction rate is reflected in one single variable named “dp_innoncent_pct.”.
Models using multiple imputation (m = 10) also yielded similar results (available upon request).
References
Acker, J. R. (2012). The flipside injustice of wrongful convictions: When the guilty go free. Albany Law Review, 76(3), 1629–1712.
Acker, J. R., & Bellandi, R. (2012). Firmament or folly? Protecting the innocent, promoting capital punishment, and the paradoxes of reconciliation. Justice Quarterly, 29(2), 287–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2011.570363
Anderson, A. L., Lytle, R., & Schwadel, P. (2017). Age, period, and cohort effects on death penalty attitudes in the United States, 1974–2014. Criminology, 55(4), 833–868. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12160
Anderson, J. (2020). Colorado set to become 22nd state to abolish death penalty. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from https://time.com/5791323/colorado-end-death-penalty/.
Armstrong, K., & Mills, S. (2000). Ryan suspends death penalty. Retrieved December 30, 2019 from https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-01-31-0002010058-story.html.
Baumer, E. P., Messner, S. F., & Rosenfeld, R. (2003). Explaining spatial variation in support for capital punishment: A multilevel analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 108(4), 844–875. https://doi.org/10.1086/367921
Baumgartner, F. R., De Boef, S. L., & Boydstun, A. E. (2008). The decline of the death penalty and the discovery of innocence. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511790638
Bingham, A., Cochran, J. K., Boots, D. P., & Heide, K. M. (2013). Public support for preventive/corrective remedies against miscarriages of justice in capital cases. Justice Quarterly, 30(4), 594–618. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2011.619560
Bobo, L. D., & Johnson, D. (2004). A taste for punishment: Black and White Americans’ views on the death penalty and the war on drugs. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 1(1), 151–180. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X04040081
Bohm, R. M. (2007). American death penalty opinion. DeathQuest III: An introduction to the theory and practice of capital punishment in the United States (pp. 365–389). London: Routledge.
Bohm, R. M., Clark, L. J., & Aveni, A. F. (1991). Knowledge and death penalty opinion: A test of the Marshall hypotheses. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 28(3), 360–387. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427891028003006
Bohm, R. M., & Vogel, B. L. (2004). More than ten years after: The long-term stability of informed death penalty opinions. Journal of Criminal Justice, 32(4), 307–327. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2004.04.003
Bohm, R. M., Vogel, R. E., & Maisto, A. A. (1993). Knowledge and death penalty opinion: A panel study. Journal of Criminal Justice, 21(1), 29–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/0047-2352(93)90004-7
Brown, E. K., & Socia, K. M. (2017). Twenty-first century punitiveness: Social sources of punitive American views reconsidered. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 33(4), 935–959. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-016-9319-4
Buckler, K., Cullen, F. T., & Unnever, J. D. (2007). Citizen assessment of local criminal courts: Does fairness matter? Journal of Criminal Justice, 35(5), 524–536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2007.07.005
Burness, A. (2020). Colorado lawmakers vote for death penalty repeal in the middle of the night. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from https://www.denverpost.com/2020/02/25/colorado-repeals-death-penalty-bill-passed/.
Burton, A. L., Cullen, F. T., Burton, V. S., Graham, A., Butler, L. C., & Thielo, A. J. (2020). Belief in redeemability and punitive public opinion: “Once a Criminal, Always a Criminal” revisited. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 47(6), 712–732. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854820913585
Clarke, A., Lambert, E., & Whitt, L. A. (2001). Executing the innocent: The next step in the Marshall hypotheses. New York University Review of Law & Social Change, 26(3), 309–346.
Cochran, J. K., & Chamlin, M. B. (2005). Can information change public opinion? Another test of the Marshall hypotheses. Journal of Criminal Justice, 33(6), 573–584. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2005.08.006
Cochran, J. K., & Chamlin, M. B. (2006). The enduring racial divide in death penalty support. Journal of Criminal Justice, 34(1), 85–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2005.11.007
Death Penalty Information Center. (2018). Illinois. Retrieved December 30, 2019 from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/illinois.
Death Penalty Information Center. (2020). Maryland. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state/maryland.
Dotson, H., & Carter, J. (2012). Changing views toward the death penalty? The intersecting impact of race and gender on attitudes. Justice System Journal, 33(1), 1–21.
Enns, P. K. (2016). Explaining the public’s punitiveness. Incarceration nation (pp. 74–99). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gallup. (2020). How Does the Gallup Poll Social Series Work. Retrieved April 4, 2020 from https://www.gallup.com/201200/gallup-poll-social-series-work.aspx
General Social Survey. (2019). Favor or oppose death penalty for murder. Retrieved from https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends/CivilLiberties?measure=cappun.
Godcharles, B. D., Rad, J. D. J., Heide, K. M., Cochran, J. K., & Solomon, E. P. (2019). Can empathy close the racial divide and gender gap in death penalty support? Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 37(1), 16–37. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2391
Gross, S. R., O’Brien, B., Hu, C., & Kennedy, E. H. (2014). Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(20), 7230–7235. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1306417111
Hagan, J., & Albonetti, C. (1982). Race, class, and the perception of criminal injustice in America. American Journal of Sociology, 88(2), 329–355. https://doi.org/10.1086/227674
Hagan, J., Shedd, C., & Payne, M. R. (2005). Race, ethnicity, and youth perceptions of criminal injustice. American Sociological Review, 70(3), 381–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240507000302
Henderson, M. L., Cullen, F. T., Cao, L., Browning, S. L., & Kopache, R. (1997). The impact of race on perceptions of criminal injustice. Journal of Criminal Justice, 25(6), 447–462. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2352(97)00032-9
Kennedy-Kollar, D., & Mandery, E. J. (2010). Testing the Marshall Hypothesis and its antithesis: The effect of biased information on death-penalty opinion. Criminal Justice Studies, 23(1), 65–83. https://doi.org/10.1080/14786011003634480
Kenney, A. (2020). Colorado lawmakers move again to abolish the death penalty (just like in 1897). Retrieved March 1, 2020 from https://www.cpr.org/2020/01/13/colorado-lawmakers-move-again-to-abolish-the-death-penalty-just-like-in-1897/.
Kohler, U., Karlson, K. B., & Holm, A. (2011). Comparing coefficients of nested nonlinear probability models. The Stata Journal: Promoting Communications on Statistics and Stata, 11(3), 420–438. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536867X1101100306
Lambert, E., & Clarke, A. (2001). The impact of information on an individual’s support of the death penalty: A partial test of the Marshall hypothesis among college students. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 12(3), 215–234. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403401012003003
Lambert, E. G., Camp, S. D., Clarke, A., & Jiang, S. (2011). The impact of information on death penalty support, revisited. Crime & Delinquency, 57(4), 572–599. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128707312147
Lehmann, P. S., & Pickett, J. T. (2017). Experience versus expectation: Economic insecurity, the great recession, and support for the death penalty. Justice Quarterly, 34(5), 873–902. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2016.1226939
MacKinnon, D. P. (2012). Single Mediator Model. Introduction to statistical mediation analysis (pp. 47–77). London: Routledge.
Markman, S. J., & Cassell, P. G. (1988). Protecting the innocent: A response to the Bedau-Radelet study. Stanford Law Review, 41(1), 121. https://doi.org/10.2307/1228837
Marshall, L. C. (2004). The innocence revolution and the death penalty. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 1, 1573–1584.
Miller, B. (2020). Colorado Senate passes bill to repeal state’s death penalty on to House. Retrieved March 1, 2020 from https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/politics/colorado-senate-passes-bill-to-repeal-states-death-penalty-on-to-house.
Mitchell, A. D. (2006). The effect of the Marshall hypothesis on attitudes toward the death penalty. Race, Gender & Class, 13(1–2), 221–247.
Norris, R. J., & Mullinix, K. J. (2019). Framing innocence: An experimental test of the effects of wrongful convictions on public opinion. Journal of Experimental Criminology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-019-09360-7
Norris, R. J., Weintraub, J. N., Acker, J. R., Redlich, A. D., & Bonventre, C. L. (2020). The criminal costs of wrongful convictions. Criminology & Public Policy, 19(2), 367–388. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12463
Peffley, M., & Hurwitz, J. (2007). Persuasion and resistance: Race and the death penalty in America. American Journal of Political Science, 51(4), 996–1012. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2007.00293.x
Pickett, J. T., Welch, K., Chiricos, T., & Gertz, M. (2014). Racial crime stereotypes and offender juvenility. Race and Justice, 4(4), 381–405. https://doi.org/10.1177/2153368714542007
Ramirez, M. D. (2013). Punitive sentiment. Criminology, 51(2), 329–364. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12007
Rizzolli, M., & Garoupa, N. (2012). Wrongful convictions do lower deterrence. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 168(2), 224. https://doi.org/10.1628/093245612800933988
Roberts, J. V., & Stalans, L. J. (1997). Evaluating the police and the courts. Public opinion, crime, and criminal justice (pp. 127–154). London: Routledge.
Saad, L. (2007). Racial disagreement over death penalty has varied historically. Retrieved October 1, 2020 from https://news.gallup.com/poll/28243/racial‐disagreement‐over‐death‐penalty‐has‐varied‐historically.aspx.
Sampson, R. J., & Bartusch, D. J. (1998). Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) Tolerance of deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law & Society Review, 32(4), 777. https://doi.org/10.2307/827739
Sellin, T. J. (1959). The death penalty: A report for the Model Penal Code Project of the American Law Institute. Philadelphia.
Slovic, P. (2007). “If I look at the mass I will never act”: Psychic numbing and genocide. Judgment and Decision Making, 2(2), 79–95.
The Death Penalty Information Center. (2020a). Innocence Database. Retrieved July 24, 2020 from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence-database.
The Death Penalty Information Center. (2020b). Racial Demographics.
The Innocence Project. (2020). All cases. Retrieved July 24, 2020 from https://www.innocenceproject.org/all-cases/#yes-death-penalty.
The National Registry of Exonerations. (2020a). Cases. Retrieved July 24, 2020 from https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/detaillist.aspx?View=%7BFAF6EDDB-5A68-4F8F-8A52-2C61F5BF9EA7%7D&FilterField1=Sentence&FilterValue1=Death.
The National Registry of Exonerations. (2020b). Glossary. Retrieved July 24, 2020, from https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/glossary.aspx
Unnever, J. D., & Cullen, F. T. (2005). Executing the innocent and support for capital punishment: Implications for public policy. Criminology & Public Policy, 4(1), 3–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2005.00002.x
Unnever, J. D., & Cullen, F. T. (2007). Reassessing the racial divide in support for capital punishment. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 44(1), 124–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427806295837
Unnever, J. D., Cullen, F. T., & Fisher, B. S. (2005a). Empathy and public support for capital punishment. Journal of Crime and Justice, 28(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/0735648X.2005.9721205
Unnever, J. D., Cullen, F. T., & Roberts, J. V. (2005b). Not everyone strongly supports the death penalty: Assessing weakly-held attitudes about capital punishment. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 29(2), 187–216. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02885735
Unnever, J. D., & Cullen, F. T. (2007). The racial divide in support for the death penalty: Does White racism matter? Social Forces, 85(3), 1281–1301. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2007.0058
Unnever, J. D., & Cullen, F. T. (2010). The social sources of Americans’ Punitiveness: A test of three competing models. Criminology, 48(1), 99–129. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00181.x
Vollum, S., Longmire, D. R., & Buffington-Vollum, J. (2004). Confidence in the death penalty and support for its use: Exploring the value-expressive dimension of death penalty attitudes. Justice Quarterly, 21(3), 521–546. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418820400095891
Vollum, S., Mallicoat, S. L., & Buffington-Vollum, J. (2009). Death penalty attitudes in an increasingly critical climate: Value-expressive support and attitude mutability. The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice, 5(3), 221–242.
Weintraub, J. N. (2020). Obstructing justice: The association between prosecutorial misconduct and the identification of true perpetrators. Crime & Delinquency. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128719901107
Wilgoren, J. (2003). Citing issues of fairness, Governor clears out death row in Illinois. Retrieved December 30, 2019 from https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/12/us/citing-issue-of-fairness-governor-clears-out-death-row-in-illinois.html.
Young, R. L. (1991). Race, conceptions of crime and justice, and support for the death penalty. Social Psychology Quarterly, 54(1), 67. https://doi.org/10.2307/2786789
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wu, S. The Effect of Wrongful Conviction Rate on Death Penalty Support and How It Closes the Racial Gap. Am J Crim Just 47, 1006–1024 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-021-09637-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-021-09637-6