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Great new paper on prosecutorial choices in Mizzou

By Douglas A. Berman

This new paper from SSRN provides fitting companion reading to today's Supreme Court work in Snyder (basics here).  The piece is entitled "Life and Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion and Capital Punishment in Missouri," and here is the abstract:This article presents the results of an empirical study of intentional homicide cases in Missouri. The authors created a database of 1046 cases; it includes substantially all of the homicide cases prosecuted in Missouri over a five year period that were initially charged as murder or voluntary manslaughter and that yielded criminal convictions. The authors selected 247 cases from the larger database for more detailed analysis.  We analyzed geographic and racial disparities in the rates at which: prosecutors charge first-degree murder versus lesser charges; prosecutors seek the death penalty, not lesser punishments; defendants are convicted of first-degree murder versus lesser crimes; and defendants are sentenced to death, not lesser punishments...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).