Graduation Year
2005
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Granting Department
Criminology
Major Professor
Dwayne Smith, Ph.D.
Co-Major Professor
John Cochran, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Sondra Fogel, Ph.D.
Keywords
Capital punishment, Victim-offender relationships, Death sentence, Murder, Aggravating circumstances
Abstract
This study is an investigation of whether familial relationships among offenders and their victims affect capital sentencing. Using a sample of capital cases from North Carolina restricted to familial homicides, logistic regression models are used while controlling for legal and extra-legal factors that influence decision outcomes. Such models of capital sentencing are developed to (1) determine whether familial-victim cases have unique correlates; and (2) whether there are variations in the effects of these correlates across gender. Contradictory to these hypotheses, results suggest that acquaintance and stranger relationships are less likely to receive a capital outcome when compared to familial relationships. Therefore, in North Carolina it appears that familial relationships receive capital outcomes more frequently than other types of victimoffender relationships. Additionally, gender of both victim and offender, do not exhibit a statistically significant effect in North Carolina at the penalty processing phase of capital trials.
Scholar Commons Citation
Evans, Katharine D., "The Impact of Victim-Offender Familial Relationships on Capital Sentencing Outcomes" (2005). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/2871
