Breaking bad
Homicide as Infectious Disease: Using Public Health Methods to Investigate the Diffusion of Homicide
April Zeoli et al.
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examined the spatial and temporal movement of homicide in Newark, New Jersey from January 1982 through September 2008. We hypothesized that homicide would diffuse in a similar process to an infectious disease with firearms and gangs operating as the infectious agents. A total of 2,366 homicide incidents were analyzed using SaTScan v.9.0, a cluster detection software. The results revealed spatio-temporal patterns of expansion diffusion: overall, firearm and gang homicide clusters in Newark evolved from a common area in the center of the city and spread southward and westward over the course of two decades. This pattern of movement has implications in regards to the susceptibility of populations to homicide, particularly because northern and eastern Newark remained largely immune to homicide clusters. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings, as well as recommendations for future research, are discussed.
----------------------
The Politics of Causes: Mass Shootings and the Cases of the Virginia Tech and Tucson Tragedies
Mark Joslyn & Donald Haider-Markel
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Objective: We employ theories of causal reasoning to understand attributions about the 2007 Virginia Tech and 2011 Tucson shootings. We argue that attributions stem from two motives: (1) a partisan motivation to perceive events consistent with party attachments, and (2) a drive to minimize the cognitive burdens associated with extensive reasoning processes. The latter motive is expected to produce a fundamental attribution bias: the least educated respondents attribute blame for the shootings to the individual assailant while the most educated attribute blame to environmental conditions.
Methods: We test hypotheses using 2007 and 2011 national surveys reported just after the shootings.
Results: Our findings suggest a major partisan divide on the causes of tragedy; Democrats believed social and political forces were responsible whereas Republicans blamed individual gunmen. Considerable differences between the least and most educated respondents were also discovered. Greater educational attainment was associated with environmental attributions. Finally, the analyses revealed that education had virtually no influence on Republican attributions, but enhanced Democrats' penchant to blame the tragedy on environmental factors.
Conclusion: Our study highlights the utility of using motivational theories of causal attributions to understanding and modeling the cognitive processes involved in perceived causes about gun-related tragedies.
----------------------
Social Networks and Risk of Homicide Victimization in an African American Community
Andrew Papachristos & Christopher Wildeman
Yale Working Paper, September 2012
Abstract:
This study estimates the association of an individual's position in a social network with their risk of homicide victimization across a high crime African American community in Chicago. Data are drawn from five years of arrest and victimization incidents from the Chicago Police Department. Results indicate that the risk of homicide is highly concentrated within the study community: 41 percent of all gun homicides in the study community occurred within a social network containing less than 4 percent of the neighborhood's population. Logistic regression models demonstrate that network-level indicators reduce the association between individual-level risk factors and the risk of homicide victimization, as well as improve overall prediction of individual victimization. In particular, social distance to a homicide victim is negatively and strongly associated with individual victimization: each social tie removed from a homicide victim decreases one's odds of being a homicide victim by approximately 57 percent. Findings suggest that understanding the social networks of offenders can allow researchers to more precisely predict individual homicide victimization within high crime communities.
----------------------
Stephanie Madon et al.
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Suspects have a preexisting vulnerability to make short-sighted confession decisions, giving disproportionate weight to proximal, rather than distal, consequences. The findings of the current research provided evidence that this preexisting vulnerability is exacerbated by factors that are associated with the immediate interrogation situation. In Experiment 1 (N = 118), a lengthy interview exacerbated participants' tendency to temporally discount a distal consequence when deciding whether or not to admit to criminal and unethical behaviors. This effect was especially pronounced among less serious behaviors. In Experiment 2 (N = 177), participants' tendency to temporally discount a distal consequence when making admission decisions was exacerbated by the expectation of a lengthy interview; an effect that became stronger the longer the interview continued. These findings suggest that conditions of the immediate interrogation situation may capitalize on an already-present vulnerability among suspects to make short-sighted confession decisions, thereby increasing the chances that even innocent suspects might confess.
----------------------
Legislation Targeting Sex Offenders: Are Recent Policies Effective in Reducing Rape?
Alissa Ackerman, Meghan Sacks & David Greenberg
Justice Quarterly, November/December 2012, Pages 858-887
Abstract:
In recent years, several pieces of state and federal legislation have imposed new restrictions on convicted sex offenders, including registration with law enforcement agencies, community notification provisions, and sexually violent predator designations permitting civil commitment following a prison sentence. This paper uses panel data for the American states for the years 1970-2002 to assess the impact of these policies on the rate at which rapes occur. Our research finds no evidence that our current policies reduce the incidence of rape.
----------------------
Gender dynamics in the sentencing of white-collar offenders
Shanna Van Slyke & William Bales
Criminal Justice Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Theory and empirical research often have agreed that female and white-collar offenders benefit from leniency at the sentencing stage of criminal justice system processing. An untested research question emerging from these distinct bodies of literature is whether the greatest leniency is afforded to female white-collar offenders. We investigate the individual and interactive influences of gender and white-collar conviction on judicial leniency by analyzing Florida sentencing guidelines data from 1994 to 2004 using multinomial logistic regression to model the decision to incarcerate nonviolent economic offenders in jail or prison rather than sentence them to community control. Results indicate that female street offenders sentenced by male judges receive the most lenient sentences, while male offenders are punished the harshest regardless of the gender of the sentencing judge or type of crime. Theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed in terms of focal concerns, familial paternalism, and attributional perspectives on judicial decision-making.
----------------------
Feelings of Safety: Ironic Consequences of Police Patrolling
Evelien van de Veer et al.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Increasing police patrolling is often assumed to be an effective means of enhancing general feelings of safety. This relationship between perceiving police and feelings of safety was tested by having police officers patrol during a field experiment (Study 1) and by manipulating the police presence in pictures of neighborhoods in a laboratory experiment (Study 2). Both studies show that in environments that are generally considered to be safe, feelings of safety are not increased by police presence. Moreover, men feel less safe when police are present compared with when police are absent. The results are discussed in terms of possible underlying mechanisms and implications for police patrolling.
----------------------
Tarasoff, Duty to Warn Laws, and Suicide
Griffin Edwards
International Review of Law and Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Confidentiality has long been considered a necessary provision of effective mental health treatment. State mandated breaches of confidentiality required of psychologists when a patient makes a credible threat to the life of another have, many argue, compromised the entire administration of mental health services. In this context, there are two possible effects through which these laws could affect mental health services. The first is an effect that directly changes how mental health professionals and patients interact spawning from a credible threat of reporting. The second is an indirect effect that could arise in the general delivery of mental health services. Using teen suicides as a measure of the direct effect, and adult suicides as the indirect effect, I estimate the impact of these laws on mental health services and find that states with these laws experience an increase in teen suicides of about 9% but that no such effect exists among adult suicides.
----------------------
Kyle Scherr & Stephanie Madon
Law and Human Behavior, August 2012, Pages 275-282
Abstract:
Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436, 1966) required that suspects be explicitly warned of the right to avoid self-incrimination and the right to legal representation. This research was designed to examine whether stress, induced via an accusation of wrong-doing, undermined or enhanced suspects' ability to comprehend their Miranda rights. Participants were randomly assigned to either be accused (n = 15) or not accused (n = 15) of having cheated on an experimental task in a two-cell between-subjects experimental design. Results supported the hypothesis that stress undermines suspects' ability to comprehend their Miranda rights. Participants who were accused of cheating exhibited significantly lower levels of Miranda comprehension than participants who were not accused of cheating. The theoretical processes responsible for these effects and the implications of the findings for police interrogation are discussed.
----------------------
Re-Examining the Functional Form of the Certainty Effect in Deterrence Theory
Thomas Loughran et al.
Justice Quarterly, September/October 2012, Pages 712-741
Abstract:
In this paper we explore the functional form of the risk-certainty effect for deterrence. Using a sample of serious youth offenders, we first estimate a simple linear model of the relationship between the perceived certainty of punishment and self-reported offending. Consistent with previous literature we find evidence of a moderate deterrent effect. We then examined whether, consistent with a linear model, the effect of perceived risk is truly constant at different ranges of the risk continuum. Estimating a nonparametric regression model that makes no a priori assumption about the functional form of the model but allows the data itself to yield the appropriate functional form, we found marked departures from linearity. Our examination showed evidence of both a tipping effect, whereby perceived risk deters only when it reaches a certain threshold (between an estimated risk of .3 and .4) and a substantially accelerated deterrent effect for individuals at the high end of the risk continuum. Perceived sanction threats did, however, have a non-trivial deterrent effect within the mid-range of risk. The implications of our findings for both theory and additional research are discussed.
----------------------
Criminal Rehabilitation, Incapacitation, and Aging
Peter Ganong
American Law and Economics Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
In April 1993, Georgia instituted new parole guidelines that led to longer prison terms for parole-eligible offenders. This paper shows that an extra year of prison reduces the three-year recidivism rate by 6 percentage points (14%) and that the benefits of preventing this crime are likely outweighed by the costs of this additional incarceration. I develop a new econometric framework to jointly estimate the effects of rehabilitation, incapacitation, and aging in reducing crime. Estimates of incapacitation effects using existing methodologies are biased upward by at least a factor of 2 because they focus on a short time horizon.
----------------------
Ingrid Gould Ellen, Johanna Lacoe & Claudia Ayanna Sharygin
Journal of Urban Economics, March 2013, Pages 59-70
Abstract:
The mortgage foreclosure crisis has generated increasing concerns about the effects of foreclosed properties on their surrounding neighborhoods, and on criminal activity in particular. There are a number of potential ways in which a foreclosed property might increase the payoffs to committing crime and decrease the likelihood of being caught, including reduced maintenance, residential turnover, and vacancy. Using point-specific, longitudinal crime, foreclosure, and other property data from New York City, this paper determines whether foreclosed properties affect criminal activity on the surrounding blockface - an individual street segment including properties on both sides of the street. We find that additional foreclosures on a blockface lead to additional total crimes, violent crimes and public order crimes. These effects appear to be largest when foreclosure activity is measured by the number of foreclosed properties that are on their way to an auction or have reverted to bank ownership. We find that effects are largest in neighborhoods with moderate or high levels of crime, and on blockfaces with concentrated foreclosure activity.
----------------------
Firearm Background Checks and Suicide
Matthew Lang
Economic Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
A popular proxy for gun ownership is the fraction of suicides from firearms. This has made identifying the causal effect of guns on suicide difficult. In this paper, firearm background checks are used as a proxy for changes in gun ownership rates, allowing the effect of guns on suicide to be identified. The results from panel data regressions show that increases in firearm background checks rates are associated with increases in firearm suicide rates. Overall suicide is positively, but insignificantly, related to background checks. In order to alleviate endogeneity that comes from suicidal individuals purchasing a gun in order to commit suicide, youth suicide is analyzed and yield similar, but noisier results. The results suggest that increases in firearms may increase the overall suicide rate because of the significant increase in firearm suicide associated with additional background checks.
----------------------
How Reliable Are Forensic Evaluations of Legal Sanity?
Neil Gowensmith, Daniel Murrie & Marcus Boccaccini
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
When different clinicians evaluate the same criminal defendant's legal sanity, do they reach the same conclusion? Because Hawaii law requires multiple, independent evaluations when questions about legal sanity arise, Hawaii allows for the first contemporary study of the reliability of legal sanity opinions in routine practice in the United States. We examined 483 evaluation reports, addressing 165 criminal defendants, in which up to three forensic psychiatrists or psychologists offered independent opinions on a defendant's legal sanity. Evaluators reached unanimous agreement regarding legal sanity in only 55.1% of cases. Evaluators tended to disagree more often when a defendant was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the offense. But evaluators tended to agree more often when they agreed about diagnosing a psychotic disorder, or when the defendant had been psychiatrically hospitalized shortly before the offense. In court, judges followed the majority opinion among evaluators in 91% of cases. But when judges disagreed with the majority opinion, they usually did so to find defendants legally sane, rather than insane. Overall, this study indicates that reliability among practicing forensic evaluators addressing legal sanity may be poorer than the field has tended to assume. Although agreement appears more likely in some cases than others, the frequent disagreements suggest a need for improved training and practice.
----------------------
James Unnever & Francis Cullen
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, November 2012, Pages 519-544
Objective: To explore whether the impact of racial and ethnic pejorative stereotypes and prejudice on White support for the death penalty changes over time.
Methods: The data were drawn from the 1990 and 2000 General Social Surveys.
This trend analysis included a four-item racial-ethnic prejudice scale and two stereotype or "typification" measures that assessed the extent to which the respondents believed that African Americans and Hispanics were more prone to violence than Whites. Controls were introduced for standard demographic measures and for known covariates of punitiveness, such as conservative political ideology and religious beliefs and involvement. The dependent variable was whether the respondents favored the death penalty for persons convicted of murder.
Results: The analyses revealed that racial and ethnic prejudice increases Whites' embrace of capital punishment in both periods of time. By contrast, the negative stereotypes that typify African Americans and Hispanics as prone to violence exerted a significant impact on support for the death penalty in 1990 but not in 2000.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that Whites' views on minority group members' proneness to violence potentially shift over time and exert significant impacts on death penalty support depending on the broader social context that prevails at a given historical juncture. Racial-ethnic feelings of animus appear to be a stable, if not intractable source of punitiveness. Future research should continue to unpack the complex nature of Whites' racial and ethnic views and to explore how, in given sociopolitical contexts, they potentially serve to justify punitive policy agendas.
----------------------
Unemployment, Guardianship, and Weekday Residential Burglary
Stewart D'Alessio, David Eitle & Lisa Stolzenberg
Justice Quarterly, November/December 2012, Pages 919-932
Abstract:
The absence of a consistent positive effect of the unemployment rate on the crime rate is perplexing, but it may be partly due to the countervailing effect of guardianship. Using weekly state-level data and a pooled cross-sectional time-series research design, we investigate whether the unemployment rate influences residential burglary. This study contributes to the extant literature by distinguishing between weekday residential burglaries, or those burglaries that occur between the hours of 6 am to 6 pm on weekdays, from weeknight/weekend burglaries. If unemployment increases guardianship because previously employed individuals are now at home during the workday protecting their possessions, the expectation is that the unemployment rate will have an instantaneous negative effect on residential burglaries that transpire during normal working hours. Results buttress the logic associated with the guardianship thesis in that a rise in the unemployment rate only engenders a decrease in weekday residential burglaries.
----------------------
An examination of gender and age in print media accounts of child abductions
Justine Taylor et al.
Criminal Justice Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has suggested that the print media over-report on certain demographics of abducted children. Specifically, cases where the abduction victim is younger or the abduction victim is female are most often covered. The purpose of the current study was to systematically examine, through the research technique of content analysis, whether a lack of congruency exists between newspaper articles detailing child abduction victims and empirical data of the same. Newspaper articles were collected from LexisNexis Academic, and empirical data were drawn from the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. The results revealed that gender and age play only a minor role in deciding which abduction incidents are covered by newspapers, as well as the extent to which they are reported on. Specifically, newspapers dedicated more words to female victims than male victims and reported more on younger children (aged 11 and under) than older children (aged 12 and over) when they were the victim of a nonfamily abduction. It appears, however, that in all other types of abduction cases, newspapers are reporting a rather factual depiction of the demographics of victims. The implications of these findings are discussed.
----------------------
Young Adults' Autobiographical Memories of Frightening News Stories Seen During Childhood
Karyn Riddle
Communication Research, December 2012, Pages 738-756
Abstract:
This study explored long-term memories for childhood exposure to disturbing televised news reports in order to uncover possible mechanisms through which children experience the emotion of fear. In an online survey, 328 undergraduates at a Midwestern university were questioned about their long-term memories for a disturbing news report seen during childhood. Results revealed that 50% of participants could remember a specific news event that frightened them during childhood, a majority of which were seen accidentally. Participants were most likely to remember news stories about terrorist attacks, murders, and kidnappings. They were more frightened when news events were rated as personally relevant, when they continued to think about the news event after it had ended, and when the news events elicited feelings of shock and surprise.
----------------------
What Makes A Homicide Newsworthy? UK National Tabloid Newspaper Journalists Tell All
Anna Gekoski, Jacqueline Gray & Joanna Adler
British Journal of Criminology, November 2012, Pages 1212-1232
Abstract:
Homicide is the most newsworthy of all crimes. Yet not all homicides are reported equally: some receive extensive coverage while others receive little or none. Qualitative questionnaires, completed by ten UK national tabloid journalists, explored the criteria that determine the newsworthiness of homicide. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis revealed that, with certain exceptions, homicides involving 'perfect' victims, statistically deviant features, killers on the run, sensational elements and/or serial killers will almost always be newsworthy, while those involving 'undeserving' victims in commonplace circumstances will almost always not. However, analysis further revealed that there will always be caveats to this, with some, normally under-reported, homicides gaining widespread coverage through unpredictable factors such as current societal issues or interest from a particular editor.
----------------------
The Sell Effect: Involuntary Medication Treatment Is a "Clear and Convincing" Success
Robert Cochrane et al.
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Supreme Court ruling Sell v. United States in 2003 (539 U.S. 166) set a new precedent by mandating federal judges function as decision makers on the issue of whether "nondangerous" incompetent defendants charged with federal crimes can be involuntarily medicated to restore their competency to stand trial. To provide data to inform future opinions by mental health professionals and decisions for judges involved in these matters, a retrospective record review of all incompetent defendants in the entire U.S. federal court system (N = 132) involuntarily treated under Sell over a 6-year period was conducted. Results indicated the majority (79%) of treated defendants suffering from a psychotic related illness were sufficiently improved to be rendered competent to stand trial, surpassing the "clear and convincing" standard established by federal appellate courts. High rates of treatment responsiveness were found across all diagnoses.
----------------------
Is the Punishment More Certain? An Analysis of CCTV Detections and Enforcement
Eric Piza, Joel Caplan & Leslie Kennedy
Justice Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The primary preventive mechanism of CCTV is considered to be deterrence.
However, the relationship between CCTV and deterrence has been left implicit. Empirical research has yet to directly test whether CCTV increases the certainty of punishment, a key component of the deterrence doctrine. This study analyzes CCTV's relation to punishment certainty in Newark, NJ. Across eight crime categories, CCTV and 9-1-1 calls-for-service case processing times and enforcement rates are compared through Mann-Whitney U and Fisher's Exact tests, respectively, with a Holm-Bonferroni procedure correcting for multiple comparisons. ANOVA and negative binomial regression models further analyze the frequency of CCTV activity and the impact of various factors on the (downward) trend of detections and enforcement. Findings suggest that CCTV increases punishment certainty on a case-by-case basis. However, a reduction of CCTV activity caused by specific "surveillance barriers" likely minimized the effect of the enhanced enforcement.
----------------------
'I Don't Dial 911': American Gun Politics and the Problem of Policing
Jennifer Carlson
British Journal of Criminology, November 2012, Pages 1113-1132
Abstract:
In what sense does American pro-gun sentiment constitute a 'politics'? I use in-depth interviews with 60 male gun carriers to propose that pro-gun politics not only involve claims to the state, but also centre on particular understandings about the proper role of the state, particularly public law enforcement. I argue that, within the contemporary US context of neo-liberalism (particularly the War on Crime), guns are a complex response to police failure amid anxieties regarding crime and insecurity. Specifically, guns serve as political tools used to critique the state's power to police. Most of the time, gun advocates articulate guns as a response to the police's inability to protect citizens; however, they sometimes also describe guns as a response to the police's propensity to violate. I identify two sets of pro-gun, police-suspicious beliefs that emerge along racialized, masculine lines, which I denote 'neo-liberal gun politics' and 'neo-radical gun politics'. I explain these political beliefs as responses to the state's power to police by showing how neo-liberal ideology alongside the War on Crime has shaped American perceptions of public law enforcement.
----------------------
An inmate's right to die: Legal and ethical considerations in death row volunteering
Jaclyn Schildkraut
Criminal Justice Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is a considerable body of literature about the death penalty across a variety of disciplines. However, a newer body of literature has emerged examining the phenomenon of elected executions, also known as death row volunteering. To date, 138 (nearly 11%) of the 1300 death row executions have come from volunteers. This issue has been particularly controversial due to a number of legal and ethical considerations that have been raised by the scholarly, legal, and public communities. Such issues include a capital defendant's competency to volunteer; ethical and moral dilemmas for capital defense attorneys, the states, and medical and mental health professionals; whether death row volunteering equates to 'state-assisted suicide'; and finally, how these considerations impact the public's support for capital punishment. This paper reviews the existing literature pertaining to death row volunteering through the lenses of these various considerations. Recommendations for future research in this area are also offered.
----------------------
Prison Visitation and Recidivism
Daniel Mears et al.
Justice Quarterly, November/December 2012, Pages 888-918
Abstract:
Scholars and policymakers have called for greater attention to understanding the causes of and solutions to improved prisoner reentry outcomes, resulting in renewed attention to a factor - prison visitation - long believed to reduce recidivism. However, despite the theoretical arguments advanced on its behalf and increased calls for evidence-based policy, there remains little credible empirical research on whether a beneficial relationship between visitation and recidivism in fact exists. Against that backdrop, this study employs propensity score matching analyses to examine whether visitation of various types and in varying amounts, or "doses," is in fact negatively associated with recidivism outcomes among a cohort of released prisoners. The analyses suggest that visitation has a small to modest effect in reducing recidivism of all types, especially property offending, and that the effects may be most pronounced for spouse or significant other visitation. We discuss the implications of the findings for research and policy.
----------------------
Managing Risk at the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol
E.S. Levine & Julie Waters
Risk Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article describes a risk analysis used to inform resource allocation at the Tucson Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol, the busiest sector for alien and drug trafficking along the Southwest land border with Mexico. The model and methodology that underlie this analysis are generally applicable to many resource allocation decisions regarding the management of frequently occurring hazards, decisions regularly made by officials at all levels of the homeland security enterprise. The analysis was executed by agents without previous risk expertise working under a short time frame, and the findings from the analysis were used to inform several resource allocation decisions.
----------------------
A Multi-Site Study of the Use of Sanctions and Incentives in Mental Health Courts
Lisa Callahan et al.
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Mental health courts (MHCs) have become widespread in the United States as a form of diversion for justice-involved individuals with mental illness. Sanctions and incentives are considered crucial to the functioning of MHCs and drug courts, yet with little empirical guidance to support or refute their use, and there are no definitions of what they are. The use of sanctions and to a lesser degree incentives is the focus of this article, with particular emphasis on jail sanctions. Subjects are participants (n = 447) in four MHCs across the United States. Results show that jail sanctions are used in three of four MHCs, and other sanctions are similarly used across the four MHCs. Participants charged with "person crimes" are the least likely to receive any sanctions, including jail, whereas those charged with drug offenses are most often sanctioned. The factors associated with receiving a jail sanction are recent drug use, substance use diagnosis, and drug arrests; being viewed as less compliant with court conditions, receiving more bench warrants, and having more in-custody hearings; and MHC program termination. No personal characteristics are related to receiving sanctions. Knowing which MHC participants are more likely to follow court orders and avoid sanctions, and identifying those who have difficulty adhering to court conditions, can help guide court officials on adjusting supervision, perhaps avoiding reoffending and program failure.
----------------------
Who Hangs Whom for What? The Death Penalty in Japan
Mark Ramseyer
Journal of Legal Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Japanese judges are least likely to hang a defendant for murder if they graduated from a high-status university, passed the bar-exam-equivalent quickly, or enjoy a fast-track career within the courts. "Panel composition effects" and other measures of collegiality seem unrelated to sentencing patterns. To explore the effect of judicial panel composition beyond the more-often-studied world of politically prominent cases, I examine its impact on criminal sentencing. More specifically, I examine the possible determinants of the propensity of Japanese judges to sentence guilty defendants to death. Toward this end, I collect all opinions published since 1980 in murder cases - about 200 cases. Because each case involves a three-judge panel but some judges write multiple opinions, these cases involve about 440 judges. Within this group, the most elite judges are least likely to impose the death penalty. Measures of possible collegiality - how long judges have served on a court together, graduation from a common university, closeness in age - have no observable impact. The presence of potential "whistle-blower" judges also appears not to matter.