When victims are white, stereotypes of blacks influence who gets death sentences

By Linda Myers

When victims of capital crimes are white, jurors are more likely to hand down death sentences to defendants with stereotypically black features, a new study from four universities, including Cornell, shows.

The study, "Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes," is the first to examine whether death sentences are influenced by juries' perceptions of defendants' features as stereotypically black. The results are published in the May issue of Psychological Science.