Kerri Dunn publishes from prison

2395

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2006, 36, 10, pp. 2395–2416.r 2006 Copyright the Authors

Journal compilation r 2006 Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

Effects of Sex and Race of Perpetrator and Method of Killing

on Outcome Judgments in a Mock Filicide Case

KERRI F. DUNN

Claremont McKenna College

GLORIA COWAN1

AND DANIEL DOWNS

California State University, San Bernardino

The present study examined college student mock jurors’ judgments of legal in-

sanity, outcome severity, and death-penalty decisions in a filicide case. The sex and

race of perpetrator (Black or White) and method of killing (shooting or smothering)

were varied in a between-subjects design. A 3-way interaction was found for out-

come severity, supporting Jones & Davis’ (1965) attributional principle of stronger

dispositional attributions for unexpected behaviors. As predicted, White women

were judged more severely when they used a gun compared to when they smothered,

whereas White men were judged more severely when they smothered compared to

when they used a gun. The most severe judgments were made for Black male

perpetrators who used a gun. Results are discussed in terms of sex and racial

stereotypes.

Few acts invoke such horror as the death of a child at the hands of aparent. Although filicide has been used as a generic term to describe thekilling of children by parents (Stanton & Simpson, 2002), distinct classifi-cations such as neonicide, infanticide (Adinkrah, 2001), early filicide, and latefilicide (Sadoff, 1995) have been made based on the age of child at the timeof the killing. Fairly clear and distinct mental state and motivational pat-terns have been proposed for the neonaticidal and infanticidal mother (Sa-doff, 1995). However, the profiles of mothers who kill at later ages andfathers who kill in general are much more speculative and unclear (Sadoff,1995).

The present study focuses on early filicide perpetrators (1 to 9 years) andis concerned with mock jurors’ judgments of responsibility, via the affirm-ative defense of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI), and sentencingdecisions. In particular, we examine the effects of sex and race of perpe-trators who use different methods of killing their children on mock jurors’

1Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Gloria Cowan, Departmentof Psychology, California State University–San Bernardino, 5500 University Parkway, SanBernardino, CA 92407. E-mail: [email protected]

assessments of legal insanity, severity of sentencing,2 and death-penaltydecisions. Moreover, we examine some of the perceived motivational, ag-gravating, and mitigating factors that jurors may impute to a parent whokills his or her children.

Research has indicated that jurors come to the courtroom bearing com-monsense notions of justice and fairness (Finkel, 1995, 1997; Finkel &Groscup, 1997; Finkel & Sales, 1997). Although the exact nature of howthese attitudes and beliefs operate has not yet been modeled conclusively,there is ample research to indicate that jurors bring a multitude of myths(Perlin, 1990), prototypes (Finkel & Groscup, 1997; Smith & Studebaker,1996), heuristics (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), and stereotypes (Stalans &Diamond, 1990) to court with them. If jurors arrive at trial with precon-ceived notions about the circumstances that surround filicide, then therewould seem to be a good chance that their decisions, at least at times, wouldbe affected by such preconceptions (Finkel, Burke, & Chavez, 2000).

The media generally have given extensive coverage to maternal filicides(Simpson & Stanton, 2000), yet few cases of paternal filicide come to mindquickly. Although far from conclusive, research in the area of maternalfilicide is more extensive than in the area of paternal filicide (Adinkrah,2001; d’Orban, 1979; Marleau, Poulin, Webanck, Roy, & Laporte, 1999;McKee & Shea, 1998; Resnick, 1969; Stanton & Simpson, 2002; Wilczynski,1995, 1997).

This increased attention to maternal filicide may stem from the percep-tion that women kill their children more frequently than do men. Althoughthere is conflicting research on this particular issue (Adinkrah, 2001;Vanamo, Kauppi, Karkola, Merikanto, & Rasanen, 2001), some researchhas indicated that women are more likely than men to be perpetrators ofneonaticide and infanticide (McKee & Shea, 1998). However, other researchhas indicated that as the child’s age increases, so does the likelihood that theparental perpetrator will be male (Adinkrah, 2001; Bourget & Bradford,1990; Copeland, 1985; Resnick, 1969). Moreover, some statistics have in-dicated that, in general, filicide is as likely to be committed by a father as bya mother (Wilczynski & Morris, 1993). These conflicting data likely arerelated to differences in the age group of the victim being studied, as well asthe composition of the perpetrating group. For example, it is possible that ifstepfathers and boyfriends were included regularly in all filicide analyses, thenumber of paternal filicides actually might exceed maternal filicide.

2Although we acknowledge that jurors in real cases (with the exception of death-penaltycases) do not administer sentencing decisions, we consider our sentencing decisions to be liketypical attitude measures, measuring general attitudes toward perpetrators (e.g., Dienstbieret al., 1998).

2396 DUNN ET AL.

Given this conflicting evidence and the possibility that paternal filicide isat least as likely to occur as maternal filicide (at least within certain ageranges; Wilczynski & Morris, 1993), why has media coverage of maternalfilicide been so extensive (Simpson & Stanton, 2000), while coverage ofpaternal filicide is less frequent or, at least, more truncated? One explanationmay be related to normative views of aggression. In general, women arebelieved to be less aggressive than men, and women’s aggression has tendedto be ignored (White & Kowalski, 1998). However, Campbell (1999) arguedthat when women are aggressive, their aggressive behaviors are stigmatizedas unnatural. For example, it also has been argued that women are viewed asout of place in the criminal justice system (Worrall, 1981). Therefore, crimescommitted by women tend to be pathologized more than crimes committedby men (Wilczynski, 1997).

Additionally, the female stereotype of woman as mother may drive soci-etal expectations that women are maternal and nurturing (Caplan, 2000;Russo, 1976). That is, women are expected to have the intrinsic ability anddesire to raise, love, and nurture children. Moreover, according to thismotherhood mandate, motherhood is central to the definition of the adultfemale in society (Russo, 1976). This mandate requires that women not onlyhave children, but raise them well. Fine and Carney (2001) argued thatwomen are more likely than men to be assigned individual responsibility forthe welfare of their children and also are charged with failure to protect theirchildren more than are men.

This analysis has been supported by research in other areas as well, suchas police reports of violent crime committed by women. For example, in anarchival study of data collected in Canada by Silverman and Kennedy(1988), only 6% of women who killed their spouses were labeled by thepolice as having a mental illness, whereas 67% of the mothers who com-mitted filicide were labeled mentally ill on police reports. Although thesedata reflect the perceptions of police officers, rather than jurors or mockjurors, they do indicate that women who kill their children may be perceivedto be mentally ill. That is, since the motherhood mandate suggests thatwomen are endless fountains of nurturance (Caplan & Caplan, 1999; Russo,1976), a woman who kills her own children is violating the stereotype offemininity by expressing violent behaviors that are both unexpected andunaccepted within the framework of traditional femininity. Women whocommit filicide, therefore, are seen as compromising and ultimately rejectingthe role that society expects them to maintain.

Given the higher perceived prevalence of mothers killing their childrenthan fathers, the stigmatization of female criminals as mentally ill, and thestrong normative dictate that women be good mothers, would maternalfilicide perpetrators be judged differently from paternal filicide perpetrators?

SEX, RACE, AND METHOD OF KILLING IN FILICIDE 2397

Despite factors suggesting that female perpetrators of filicide would bejudged more harshly than male perpetrators, archival research indicates thatwomen are acquitted more often for the crime of filicide than are men(Armstrong, 1999; Lymburner & Roesch, 1999). Some archival research alsoindicates that women are more likely to use a psychiatric plea and to be dealtwith through the use of informal, treatment-oriented methods, whereas mentend to receive more custodial sentences (Wilczynski, 1997). However, thesedata were collected in Great Britain and may not generalize to psychiatricpleas in the United States.

Notwithstanding differences attributed to culture, the maternal rolegenerally would hold women to be more responsible than the paternal rolewould for men. Thus, this determination as demonstrated in actual filicidecases may be mitigated by judgments of mental illness and, ultimately, legalinsanity. Because women who kill their children are violating two strongcultural norms (i.e., women as nonaggressive/noncriminal, and women asnurturers), we predict that mock jurors will judge female perpetrators offilicide to be legally insane more often than male perpetrators of filicide.

A factor that may be related to the disposition of male and female filicideperpetrators in the criminal justice system may be the method of killing.Some laboratory research has found that when weapons are involved incrimes (holding all crime attributes constant), mock jurors tend to rendersentences that are more severe (Dienstbier et al., 1998). Therefore, we alsomight expect to see a decrease in perceptions of responsibility based on legalinsanity dispositions, and an increase in severity of sentences for those con-victed, regardless of sex, when guns are used, compared to smothering.

Women who kill their children tend to use more passive means (poison-ing, smothering, drowning, gassing, suffocation), compared to men who killtheir children (stabbing, striking, squeezing, shooting; Lewis, Baranoski,Buchanan, & Benedek, 1998; Resnick, 1969; Silverman & Kennedy, 1988).Thus, type of outcome (insanity acquittal vs. sentence imposed) in cases inwhich women kill their children may be a function of both the method usedand the sex of the perpetrator.

We propose that judgments of outcome in filicide cases should vary as afunction of a combination of the sex of the perpetrator and the method ofkilling. Specifically, when filicide is committed by sex-role-inconsistentmeans, we expect that jurors will assign more severe outcomes. This pre-diction is derived from Jones and Davis’ (1965) attributional theory of cor-respondent inference. This model suggests that unexpected, out-of-role, andnorm-inconsistent behaviors lead to more extreme judgments. Becausewomen using guns and men smothering are sex-role incongruousFthat is,they are less common (Resnick, 1969) and more unexpectedFwe expectsentences to be harsher in these conditions.

2398 DUNN ET AL.

These Sex � Method predictions may apply only when the perpetrator isWhite not Black. Little research has explored the role of race as a factor ineither maternal or paternal filicides in the United States. In a study of 20adult women who were referred to a forensic psychiatric hospital after beingcharged with murdering their children, McKee and Shea (1998) found that55% of their sample were Black and 45% were White. Another study of theprofile of parents who killed their children (under 6 years of age) in Detroit,Michigan between 1982 and 1986 indicated that approximately 92% wereBlack. Although the Black population in Detroit exceeds 80% (‘‘Profiling46,000 Cities,’’ 2000), these findings suggest that, regardless of populationstatistics, Blacks do commit filicide.

Despite these statistics, more attention seems to be given to the Whitewoman filicidal perpetrator than any other Sex � Race combination.Thus, another question that arises is whether racial characteristics of filicidalperpetrators may affect mock juridical decision making, either indepen-dently or in combination with the sex of the perpetrator and the methodof killing.

As previously noted, research has indicated that jurors bring a vast arrayof stereotypes and myths to the courtroom. Racial stereotypes, in particular,have been found to influence judgments of guilt and sentencing (Boden-hausen, 1990; Dunn, Willis-Esqueda, & Schopp, 1998) and are related toharsher treatment of minority men within the legal system (Gorden, 1993;Gorden, Bindrim, McNicholas, & Walden, 1988; Willis-Esqueda & Swan-son, 1997). These stronger responsibility assignments and the overallharsher treatment of minority males in the criminal justice system are con-sistent with media presentations of crime that frequently link violent crimeto Blacks and Hispanics (Oliver, 1994). Moreover, these associationsserve to reinforce further the stereotypes of minority men’s criminality(Willis-Esqueda, 1997).

Given the strong associative link between African American men andviolent crime, the question thus arises as to whether Black men will betreated more harshly for the crime of filicide despite the greater attentiongiven to White female perpetrators in filicidal cases. There are two possi-bilities that may be posited regarding the effects involving perpetrator race.First, one could expect that jurors will render more severe sentences forBlack men who use a gun than any other combination of sex, race, andmethod. This outcome would be based on stereotypes involving Black menand violent crime, as well as prior research indicating that such stereotypesare linked to harsher responsibility, guilt, and sentencing assignments(Bodenhausen, 1990; Dunn et al., 1998; Willis-Esqueda & Swanson, 1997).The tendency for Black men to be judged more severely than White menor women in general should override the alternative expectation based on


correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965). Second, based onattribution theory (Jones & Davis, 1965), Black men who smother shouldreceive harsher sentences than Black men who use a gun because of thestereotype-inconsistent method involved.

In light of the stereotypes and expectations associated with the sex offilicide perpetrators, as well as the race of violent criminals in general, thecurrent study explores the effect of sex, race, and method of killing oninsanity judgments and sentencing severity in cases of early filicide (wherethe children are under 6 years of age). In summary, we expect that collegestudents serving as mock jurors will make different judgments about thesanity of perpetrators based on their sex. Specifically, we expect femaleperpetrators to be found NGRI more often than male perpetrators. More-over, we expect that the sex of the perpetrator will interact with method ofkilling such that individuals who use sex-inconsistent methods of killing willbe sentenced more harshly. We further expect that Black men who shoot willreceive the harshest sentence and will be more likely to be given the deathpenalty than any other perpetrator-method combination.

A final consideration is the role of jurors. Although a clear pattern of sexdifferences among jurors has not been identified, sex does seem to be linkedwith verdicts in rape and battered-women cases (Ellsworth & Mauro, 1998).Thus, given the societal norm of women as mothers, female jurors may reactmore negatively than male jurors to the killing of a child. Thus, we examinethe effect of the sex of jurors on outcome severity.

Method

Design and Participants

The study design was a 2 (Sex of Perpetrator) � 2 (Method of Killing:gunshot or smothering) � 2 (Race of Perpetrator: White or Black) between-subjects, fully crossed factorial design. Participants were 238 undergraduatestudents (149 female, 88 male, 1 who did not indicate gender), recruited froma state university in southern California, with a mean age of 27 years(SD5 8.82), and who participated in exchange for course credit.

The racial composition of participants, which reflects the demographicsof the surrounding population more generally, was as follows: 40% White,28% Hispanic, 18% Black, 5% Asian, 3% American Indian, and 6%‘‘Other.’’ Regarding socioeconomic characteristics of the sample, meanfamily income fell between $30,000 and $40,000.

Participants volunteered by taking questionnaires that had been coun-terbalanced by condition from the Human Subjects Volunteer Bulletin

2400 DUNN ET AL.

Board and returning them to a central location. Each of the eight cellscontained from 29 to 31 participants.

Materials and Procedure

Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that contained aninformed consent, a demographic questionnaire, a fact sheet describing thefilicide case, and jury instructions. The stimulus packet contained a one-pagefact pattern detailing a filicide case and a series of 7-point Likert-typequestions regarding motives for the filicide, potential aggravators and mi-tigators of the crime, characteristics of the crime and perpetrator circum-stances of the crime, as well as outcome judgments.

Prior to reading details of the filicide, mock jurors were told that theperpetrator had killed his or her children and that the facts of the casefollowed. In the scenario, the perpetrator was described as either the wife(Michelle Jackson) or the husband (Sam Jackson), and as either Black orWhite.

Next, details of the events preceding the filicide were outlined. The sce-nario began with a couple that was experiencing marital problems 8 yearsinto their marriage when their financial situation became troublesome.Multiple interpretations were offered for the motive of the killing, and theyoccurred in the following order: (a) the couple was described as experiencingfinancial difficulty; (b) the nonperpetrating spouse was experiencing stressand drifting away from the family; (c) the perpetrator saw a psychiatrist forantidepressants; (d) the spouse suggested a separation, filed for divorce, andwas seeking full custody of the children; (e) an attorney informed the per-petrator that the chances of custody were equivocal; (f) a neighbor calledChild Protective Services (CPS) on the perpetrator, suggesting that thechildren were being neglected; (g) the perpetrator purchased a life-insurancepolicy on the children from a door-to-door salesman; and (h) the perpetratormade an attempt at suicide and was hospitalized for anxiety and depression.Finally, upon release from the hospital, the perpetrator killed the threechildren.

The description regarding the method of killing was one of two scenarios:Sam (Michelle) took a long look at the children and then proceeded to killeach child, one at a time ‘‘shooting them with a gun at point-blank range’’ or‘‘smothering them with a pillow.’’ The fact pattern left no doubt that theparent had killed the children. Thus, guilt was not an issue in this case.Rather, we focused on responsibility (via NGRI) and sentencing severity.

A brief description of the trial included conflicting expert evidenceregarding insanity. Specifically, the prosecutor called a psychiatrist who


testified that the perpetrator was able to appreciate right from wrong at thetime of the killing, whereas the defense psychiatrist testified that the per-petrator actually suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was not able toappreciate that killing the children was wrong.

Following the presentation of the case, participants were asked threequestions that served to evaluate the effectiveness of the manipulations.Specifically, they were asked what the sex, race, and method of killingwere in their specific scenario. All participants correctly answered thesequestions.

Next, participants were asked to respond to questions on a 7-point scaleranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). These items assessedparticipants’ perceptions of potential motives for the killing. These motivesinclude mental illness, financial gain, lying in wait, spousal revenge, des-peration, and not wanting the children.

Perceived characteristics of the crime and perpetrator also were assessedvia 7-point questions. These items examined perceived heinousness, violence,and deliberateness of the crime; as well as sympathy for the perpetrator.These items also were used to assess mock jurors’ consideration of thesecircumstances as potential mitigators and aggravators of the crime for sen-tencing and death-penalty decisions.

The two primary dependent measuresFlegal insanity and sentencingdecisionFwere introduced first via a description of the criteria for judg-ments of legal insanity according to California Jury Instructions, Criminal(California Jury Instructions, Criminal [CALJIC], 1993). The instructionsconformed to the M’Naghten standard of proof, which is generally con-sidered the more conservative of the two most common insanity pleas (e.g.,M’Naghten v. The American Law Institute [ALI] Model penal code, 1962,y4.01; Borum & Fulero, 1999). The instructions read, in part, ‘‘A person isinsane if he or she is incapable of knowing or understanding the nature andquality of his or her act [or] of distinguishing right from wrong at the time ofthe commission of the offense’’ (CALJIC, 1993, pp. 141-142). The instruc-tions further indicated that mental illness and legal insanity are not nec-essarily the same dispositions. Participants then were asked to judge whetherthe perpetrator was legally insane or not legally insane.

Participants who checked not legally insane were next given sentencinginstructions (CALJIC, 1993). These instructions indicated that the mockjurors should consider (or weigh) the existence of any special circumstances(i.e., financial gain, lying in wait, multiple murders), as well as whether thecrime was committed while the defendant was under mental duress. More-over, they were to consider whether the defendant suffered a mental diseasethat affected his or her ability to appreciate the criminality of his or heractions, or to conform his or her conduct to the requirements of the law.

2402 DUNN ET AL.

Finally, participants were instructed that they may consider any otherextenuating factor or sympathetic aspect of the defendant’s character. Jurorsthen were asked to choose between life in prison with the possibility ofparole in 25 years (LWP), life in prison without the possibility of parole(LWOP), or the death penalty.3

The analysis used three dependent measures. First, the dichotomousmeasure of legal insanity was used. Second, the insanity decision was com-bined with the alternative life-sentencing decisions (LWP or LWOP) and thedeath-penalty option to form a four-item outcome-severity decision. Thedecision to combine what is technically a guilt disposition (i.e., the insanityvariable) with the other sentencing dispositions was made for both meth-odological and substantive reasons.

From a methodological perspective, the creation of a four-level outcomemeasure is associated with increased variance and, therefore, is generally amore sensitive measure. Our intention was to assess jurors’ perceptions ofthe responsibility level of different perpetrators of filicide, and an NGRIoutcome technically negates the perpetrator’s responsibility and renders ac-quittees ineligible for criminal sanctions (Borum & Fulero, 1999).

Research has indicated that public perception of insanity acquittees isthat they simply go free (Borum & Fulero, 1999). Therefore, NGRI sits atthe low end of the ultimate outcome measure (which we termed outcomeseverity), whereas death sits at the high end. The third measure that was usedwas a dichotomous death-penalty measure that assessed the death-penaltydecision versus the two other life-sentencing decisions (combining LWP andLWOP).

Results

Across conditions, 48 (20%) out of 238 participants rated the perpetratorto be insane, 62 (26%) sentenced the perpetrator to life with parole, and 88(37%) sentenced the perpetrator to life without parole. The remaining 40(17%) participants designated the death penalty as a sentence.

Sex and Insanity

We first tested the hypothesis that women would be judged legally insanemore often than men for killing their children. A simple chi-square analysiswas conducted to determine if mock jurors differentially rated male and

3We are mindful that death-penalty cases are much more complex than other cases. Forexample, death-penalty cases require death qualification of jurors, and jurors are permitted tomake sentencing decisions. Here again, we use the death penalty as a measure of outcomeseverity, rather than a measure of willingness to execute per se.


female perpetrators of filicide to be insane. Contrary to our hypothesis, theresults indicated no difference in insanity ratings as a function of sex of theperpetrator, w2(1, N5 238)5 0.85, p4 .05. In addition, no other variablesalone or in combination with one another affected the insanity ratings(ps4 .05).

Method of Killing and Sentencing

We next tested the hypothesis that the method of killingFinvolving agun compared to smotheringFwould be related to outcome severity, re-gardless of sex of the perpetrator. An ANOVA was calculated using methodas the independent measure and outcome severity as the dependent measure.Results of method of killing on outcome reveal that participants did notassign jurors different outcomes based on the use of a gun versus manualsmothering, F(1, 236)5 0.07, p4 .05.

Interactions

We examined the interactive relationships of sex of the perpetrator,method of killing, race of perpetrator, and sex of juror on outcome severity.We thus addressed two hypotheses; namely, the prediction that perpetratorswho use sex-inconsistent means of killing would receive harsher outcomesthan those who use sex-consistent means, and the hypothesis that Black menwho use a gun would receive harsher outcomes (particularly more deathsentences) than any other combination of sex, race, and method.

A logistic regression was calculated to assess the relationship of the fourpredictor variables (sex of perpetrator, race, method of killing, and sex ofjuror) on the dichotomized measure of death-penalty decisions. The resultsindicate that neither the overall model, w2(1, 12)5 0.09, p4 .05, nor thepredictors entered independently or in combination with one another sig-nificantly contributed to the model (ps4 .05) to predict mock jurors’ death-penalty decisions.

A 2 (Sex of Perpetrator) � 2 (Race of Perpetrator) � 2 (Method ofKilling) � 2 (Sex of Juror) ANOVA was calculated on the four-level out-come variable (ranging from insanity to death penalty). The results indicate athree-way interaction between race of perpetrator, sex of perpetrator, andmethod, F(1, 222)5 4.12, po .05. Separate two-way interactions of methodand sex of perpetrator for Black and White perpetrators were not significant(ps4 .05). Thus, it was the overall pattern, not the separate two-way in-teractions, that contributed to the effect. As Figures 1 and 2 indicate, thisrelationship was a doubly crossed interaction.

2404 DUNN ET AL.

The hypothesis of outcome severity based on sex-inconsistent methodswas supported for White perpetrators, yet it was not supported for Blackperpetrators, although none of the eight means differed significantly fromone another (ps4 .05). However, White women who used a gun (M5 1.85)tended to be treated more harshly than White women who smothered(M5 1.31), whereas White men who smothered (M5 1.60) received slightlyharsher outcomes than did White men who used a gun (M5 1.21).

This pattern was different for Black perpetrators and provided tentativesupport for our hypothesis regarding Black men. That is, Black men whoused a gun tended to be treated more harshly (M5 1.94) than Black menwho smothered (M5 1.46), whereas Black women who smothered(M5 1.43) were treated more harshly than were Black women who used agun (M5 1.09). Furthermore, the means for Black men who used a gun

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

Gun SmotheringMethod of Killing

Ou

tco

me

Sev

erit

y

White MalePerpetrator

White FemalePerpetrator

Figure 1. Outcome severity means for White perpetrator.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Gun SmotheringMethod of Killing

Ou

tco

me

Sev

erit

y

Black MalePerpetrator

Black FemalePerpetrator

Figure 2. Outcome severity means for Black perpetrator.


were higher (indicating a more severe outcome) than they were for any othercombination of Race � Sex � Method, with the exception of Whitewomen.

This analysis did not indicate any other main effects, two-way interac-tions, or four-way interactions for sentencing. Thus, although we had ex-pected sex of juror to be a factor in outcome decisions, no such relationshipwas found.

Intercorrelations: Outcomes by Gender and Race of Perpetrator

Two sets of correlations were calculated to assess the relationship be-tween the primary dependent measures and possible motives, aggravators,mitigators, and characteristics of the crime and the perpetrator. These werecalculated for both the sample as a whole and for each of the Sex � Per-petrator Race combinations: White men, White women, Black men, andBlack women. Table 1 contains the overall correlations across all conditions.Overall, insanity judgments were associated positively with mental illness,mercy killing, and sympathy for the perpetrator; and negatively associatedwith spousal revenge. Although mental illness was associated with judg-ments of insanity, it should be noted that neither sex of the perpetrator norrace of the perpetrator was associated with perceptions of mental illness(sex, r5 .04, p4 .05; race, r5 - .04, p4 .05) or with insanity decisions.

Aggravating factors were correlated positively with the four-item out-come variable and the dichotomous death-penalty variable. That is, partic-ipants who were more likely to believe the killing was for financial gain, forspousal revenge, heinous, deliberate, or occurred when the parent was lyingin wait assigned harsher outcomes. Similarly, financial gain, lying in wait,and deliberation were associated with the assignment of more death-penaltysentences. Finally, sympathy for the perpetrator and mental illness of theperpetrator were associated with less harsh outcomes and lower death-sentencing rates for the perpetrator.

Table 2 contains the Race � Sex correlations between the various out-come measures (insanity, outcome severity, death penalty) and the motivesand characteristics of the crime and perpetrators (which might be viewedalso as aggravators and mitigators). Mental illness and sympathy for theperpetrator (factors that might mitigate the crime) similarly were associatedwith the insanity and outcome-severity variables for all four groups. Withrespect to the insanity variable, sympathy for the perpetrator and mentalillness consistently predicted higher insanity ratings for all groups, exceptthat mental illness was not associated with insanity for Black women.Moreover, sympathy for the perpetrator and mental illness were associated

2406 DUNN ET AL.

Table1

CorrelationsBetweenOutcomeMeasures,Motives,andAttributesoftheCrimeAcross

AllConditions

Mental

illness

Financial

gain

Lying

inwait

Spouse

revenge

Desperate

Children

not

wanted

Mercy

killing

HeinousViolentDeliberate

Sympathy

Insanity

.297��

.078

.089

-.234��

.025

.080

.147�

.094

-.060

.105

.410��

Outcome

severity

-.371��

.190��

.188��

.244��

.037

.073

-.137�

.186��

.044

.167�

-.454��

Lifevs.

death

penalty

-.178�

.173�

.222�

.127

.039

.107

-.080

.077

.051

.162�

-.195��

Note.Desperate

5perpetratorfelt

desperate;Deliberate

5murdersweredeliberate;Sympathy

5sympathyforperpetrator.

For

insanityandlife

vs.death-penaltyjudgments,higher

scoresindicate

insanityanddeath

penalty.

� po

.05.��

po

.01.


Table2

CorrelationsBetweenOutcomeMeasures,Motives,andAttributesoftheCrimeforVariousCategories

ofPerpetrators

Gender/

race

of

perp

Mental

illness

Financial

gain

Lying

inwait

Spouse

revenge

Desperate

Children

not

wanted

Mercy

killing

Heinous

Violent

Deliberate

Sympathy

Insanity

W/M

.35��

-.17

-.11

-.42��

-.33��

-.01

.19

-.12

.10

-.12

.39��

W/W

.32��

-.03

-.07

-.21

-.01

-.02

.23

-.07

.12

-.06

.41��

B/M

.32��

.05

.05

-.07

.20

.02

.21

.04

.03

-.23

.50��

B/W

.21

-.14

-.18

-.24

.40

-.26�

-.06

-.21

-.002

-.03

.38��

Outcome

severity

W/M

-.42��

.33�

.26�

.37��

.31��

-.05

-.09

.13

.06

.12

-.50��

W/W

-.39��

.23

.33��

.19

.04

.09

-.35��

.32��

.11

.24

-.44��

B/M

-.38��

.06

.03

.02

-.09

.06

-.12

-.05

.03

.17

-.49��

B/W

-.31�

.09

.11

.33��

-.11

.15

.01

.30�

.02

.16

-.42��

Lifevs.

death

penalty

W/M

-.40��

.17

.27

.02

.09

-.07

-.02

-.05

-.05

.03

-.27

W/W

-.21

.32�

.39��

.18

.03

.20

-.30�

.26

.19

.43��

-.26

B/M

.03

.05

.05

.00

.17

.08

.07

.02

.11

.05

-.02

B/W

-.18

.19

.13

.28

-.11

.14

-.02

.04

-.04

.10

-.21

Note.Perp

5perpetrator;Desperate

5perpetratorfeltdesperate;Deliberate

5murdersweredeliberate;Sympathy

5sympathyfor

perpetrator;W/M

5WhiteMen;W/W

5WhiteWomen;B/M

5Black

Men;B/W

5Black

Women.Forinsanityandlife

vs.death-

penaltyjudgments,higher

scoresindicate

insanityanddeath

penalty.

� po

.05.��

po

.01.�� p

o.001.

2408 DUNN ET AL.

with leniency in the outcome-severity measure for all groups of perpetrators.However, these two factors (mental illness and sympathy) were not relatedto death-penalty decisions for any group except White men.

Correlations of other possible motivational factors with the insanityvariable varied among sex/race groups. Spousal revenge and desperationwere associated negatively with insanity ratings for White men only. Un-wanted children were associated negatively with insanity ratings only forBlack women.

Differences emerged among the correlates for the outcome-severity var-iable as well. Although both sympathy for the perpetrator and mental illnesswere associated negatively with outcome severity for all perpetrators, aconsiderably larger number of aggravators and mitigators were associatedwith outcome severity for White perpetrators than for Black perpetrators.Specifically, for White men, financial gain, lying in wait, spousal revenge,and desperation were associated positively with outcome severity; and lyingin wait and crime heinousness were associated positively with outcome se-verity for White women. Also, mercy killing was associated negatively withoutcome severity for White women.

In contrast, only two factors were associated with outcome severity forBlack perpetrators. Spousal revenge and crime heinousness were associatedpositively with outcome severity for Black women only. For Black men, withthe exception of mitigating factors, no extralegal factors were associatedwith outcome severity.

In terms of the death-penalty variable, even fewer correlates were foundoverall. Specifically, mental illness predicted death-penalty decisions onlyfor White men. In contrast, three aggravating factors and one mitigatingfactor were associated with death-penalty decisions for White women: fi-nancial gain, lying in wait, deliberation, and mercy killing. Not oneaggravator, mitigator, or characteristic of the crime or perpetrator predicteddeath-penalty outcomes for Black men or Black women.

Discussion

Neither of our main effect predictions was supported by the analysis.Prior research indicating that women are both more likely to use a psychi-atric plea in filicide cases (Wilczynski, 1997) and more likely to be acquittedfor filicide than men (Armstrong, 1999; Lymburner & Roesch, 1999), as wellthe very strong cultural norm that women are non-aggressive (White &Kowalski, 1998) led to our prediction that female early filicidal perpetratorswould be pathologized more than would male early filicidal perpetrators.However, our analysis indicates no such relationship. Moreover, we had


predicted that perpetrators who used a gun (a method traditionally asso-ciated with more extreme sentencing) would, regardless of race or sex, betreated more harshly than perpetrators who smothered. Again, this maineffect prediction was not supported by the analysis.

However, several key findings did emerge from this analysis. First, ourinteractional hypothesisFthat early filicidal perpetrators who killed theirchildren using sex-inconsistent means would receive harsher outcomesFwassupported for the White perpetrators, but not for the Black perpetrators.Fine and Carney (2001) suggested that role nonconformity is influential inpunishing women who are considered criminal. In the present study, themethod of killing was regarded as a sex-consistent or sex-inconsistent factor.Thus, a White woman who shoots her children and a White man whosmothers his children are using methods that are sex-inconsistent (Collins,Shaughnessy, Bradley, & Brown, 2001; Lewis et al., 1998; Resnick, 1969;Silverman & Kennedy, 1988).

Blackman (1990) suggested that the response of the criminal justice sys-tem is influenced by racist as well as sexist assumptions when a child has notbeen protected. Jurors’ decisions in criminal (particularly capital) cases arenot racially neutral (e.g., see Baldus, Woodworth, & Pulaski, 1990; Bowers& Pierce, 1981; Dunn et al., 1998; Haney, 1995a, 1995b, 1997; Sweeney &Haney, 1992; U.S. General Accounting Office, 1990).

The findings suggest that the tendency for Black men to be judged moreharshly in the criminal justice system as a result of stereotypes linking themto violent crime using weapons overrides the alternative possible hypothesisbased on Jones and Davis’ (1965) correspondent inference theory. Predic-tions based on correspondent inference theory would suggest that norm-incongruous (or stereotype-incongruous) behaviors (i.e., methods of killing)should lead to more extreme judgments. This theory obviously was notsupported in the current study, as Black men actually received harsher out-comes when they used guns (a sex- and racially consistent method) thanwhen they smothered (a sex- and racially inconsistent method). The samewas true for Black female filicidal perpetrators. That is, Black women whosmothered their children (a sex-consistent method) were treated moreharshly than were Black women who used guns. These findings represent theconverse of the sex-inconsistent findings that were found for White perpe-trators.

Despite the fact that our main effect predictions regarding sex and raceof the perpetrator were not supported, interesting differences in the factorsassociated with the outcome variables (i.e., insanity, sentence, and death-penalty decisions) did emerge. For example, with the exception of mentalillness, which was positively related to insanity for all three of the four race-sex perpetrator combinations (except Black Women), and sympathy of the

2410 DUNN ET AL.

perpetrator, which was positively related to outcome severity for all per-petrators, more factors were associated with insanity and outcome-severitydecisions for White men than for any other group.

The fact that mental illness was not associated with insanity for Blackwomen may be a result of the stereotype of Black women as being able toovercome any obstacle (Sparks, 1998). Also, perhaps the realization thatsocial structural variables are external barriers to adequate caretaking maymitigate the association of mental illness and insanity for Black female per-petrators. Finally, none of the factors were associated with the death penaltyfor Black men or Black women.

There are two possible explanations that may be posited for the lack ofassociated factors for Black men and Black women on the death-penaltyvariable. A possibility is that the general societal schema regarding earlyfilicidal perpetrators is that they are White, thus rendering the associativenetwork larger and more complex than that for non-White filicidal perpe-trators. Thus, aggravating and mitigating factors may not be available el-ements when decisions about non-White filicidal perpetrators are made.Alternatively, these results simply may reflect a quality of arbitrariness inthe decision-making process of mock jurors when rendering decisions aboutBlack perpetrators of violent crime, particularly with respect to death-penalty decisions.

Certainly some patterns can be ascertained from the associations madebetween the extralegal factors and the outcome variables for each type ofperpetrator. For example, mercy killing, which was a significant negativecorrelate with outcome severity and death penalty for White women only,may be related to stereotypes of White women as maternal and nurturing.As previously noted, violations of these normative roles may be a source ofconfusion for decision makers. Thus, jurors may need to search for somereason why a White mother would kill her children, simply because theperception of a White woman killing her children violates too many norms(woman as mother and nurturer; woman as non-aggressive). Consider thefollowing quote from a recent law review article relating to mothers who killtheir children: ‘‘It makes sense that there would be a much higher frequencyof insanity in filicide than in other crimes because if not insane, how could amother murder her own children?’’ (Bienstock, 2003, p. 452).

The norm of women as mothers and nurturers seems less salient forBlack mothers, as the prototype for the murderer of one’s children seems tobe a White woman. For example, the historical image of Black ‘‘mammies’’as nurturers of White children, rather than their own children (Sparks,1998), may disrupt the nurturer stereotype for Black mothers. Moreover,Black women are seen as more aggressive, assertive, and dominant thanWhite women or Black men (Collins, 1991).


A final factor for consideration is the larger number of aggravating fac-tors that were associated with death-penalty decisions for White women.Social science research on women and the death penalty is sparse, and theexecution of women in general has generated considerable societal debate(particularly without reference to the race of the female perpetrator). Ourresults indicate that mock jurors associated more aggravating factors withdeath-penalty decisions for White women than with any other group. Thisphenomenon may have to do with the disbelief that a (White) woman wouldkill her children, so that White women may present a moral dilemma tothose who vote to execute in general. Therefore, conjuring aggravating fac-tors for the justification of a death sentence for White women may be theonly way that paternalistic jurors can follow through.

In aggregate, these results call for future research in the area of filicide,particularly with respect to considerations of race and sex. Future researchwould serve well to investigate these variables under more ecologically validcircumstances. Furthermore, examination of actual adjudication of femaleand male filicide perpetrators should include the method used. In actualcases, it would be informative to determine whether severity of outcome isassociated with the method used.

As with any experimental piece, the current study is limited in terms ofexternal validity. First, the study focused on early filicidal perpetrators.Others have distinguished between neonaticide, infanticide, early filicide,and late filicide in terms of the profile of perpetrators (Sadoff, 1995). There-fore, application of our research is limited to cases in which a parentkills a child in early childhood. Additionally, the sample disproportionatelyrepresented women and college students, making it difficult to demonstrateany interactions of sex of juror with the experimental variables. However, theother demographics of our sample do more closely represent those of atypical jury pool in terms of ethnicity, income, and age. In sum, our researchsuggests that the sex and race of the perpetrator, as well as the methodused in the killing, should be investigated further if we are to come to asolid understanding of the mechanisms of juridical decision making infilicide cases.

References

Adinkrah, M. (2001). When parents kill: An analysis of filicides in Fiji.International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology,45, 144-158.

American Law Institute. (1962). Model penal code (proposed official draft).Philadelphia, PA: Author.

2412 DUNN ET AL.

Armstrong, I. (1999). Women and their uncontrollable impulses: The med-icalisation of women’s crime and differential gender sentencing. Psychi-atry, Psychology, and Law, 6, 67-77.

Baldus, D., Woodworth, G., & Pulaski, C. (1990). Equal justice and thedeath penalty: A legal empirical analysis. Boston: Northeastern Univer-sity Press.

Bienstock, S. L. (2003). Mothers who kill their children and postpartumpsychosis. Southwestern University Law Review, 32, 451-499.

Blackman, J. (1990). Emerging images of severely battered women andthe criminal justice system. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 8,121-130.

Bodenhausen, G. V. (1990). Second-guessing the jury: Stereotypic andhindsight biases in perception of court cases. Journal of Applied SocialPsychology, 20, 1112-1121.

Borum, R., & Fulero, S. M. (1999). Empirical research on the insanitydefense and attempted reforms: Evidence toward informed policy. Lawand Human Behavior, 23, 117-136.

Bourget, D., & Bradford, J. M. W. (1990). Homicidal parents. CanadianJournal of Psychiatry, 35, 233-237.

Bowers, W., & Pierce, G. (1981). Arbitrariness and discrimination underpost-Furman capital statutes. Crime and Delinquency, 26, 563-635.

California jury instructions, criminal (CALJIC). (1986). y8.84.1 (general sen-tencing) and y8.84.2 (special circumstances). St. Paul, MN: West Pub-lishing.

California jury instructions, criminal (CALJIC). (1993). Defense of insanityy4.00 (5th ed.). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing.

Campbell, A. (1999). Staying alive: Evolution, culture, and women’s intra-sexual aggression. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 203-252.

Caplan, P. J. (2000). The new don’t blame mother: Mending the mother-daughter relationship. New York: Routledge.

Collins, P. L. (1991). Black feminist thought. New York: Routledge.Collins, P. L., Shaughnessy, M. F., Bradley, L., & Brown, K. (2001).

Filicide–suicide: In search of meaning. North American Journal ofPsychology, 3, 277-292.

Copeland, A. R. (1985). Homicide in childhood: A public health problem inneed of attention. American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology,6, 618-622.

Dienstbier, R. A., Roesch, S. C., Mizumoto, A., Hemenover, S. H., Lott,R. C., & Carlo, G. (1998). Effects of weapons on guilt judgments andsentencing recommendations for criminals. Basic and Applied SocialPsychology, 20, 93-102.


d’Orban, P. T. (1979). Women who kill their children. British Journal ofPsychiatry, 134, 560-571.

Dunn, K. F., Willis-Esqueda, C., & Schopp, R. F. (March 1998). The effectsof victim blame, perpetrator race, and instruction type on capital sentenc-ing decisions. Paper presented at the meeting of the American PsychologyLaw Society, Redondo Beach, CA.

Ellsworth, P. C., & Mauro, R. (1998). Psychology and law. In D. Gilbert,S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed.,pp. 619-626). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Fine, M., & Carney, S. (2001). Women, gender, and the law. In R. K. Unger(Ed.), Handbook of the psychology of women and gender (pp. 388-409).New York: Wiley.

Finkel, N. J. (1995). Commonsense justice: Jurors’ notions of the law. Cam-bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Finkel, N. J. (1997). Commonsense justice, psychology, and the law: Pro-totypes common, senseful and not. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law,3, 461-489.

Finkel, N. J., Burke, J. E., & Chavez, L. J. (2000). Commonsense judgmentsof infanticide: Murder, manslaughter, madness, or miscellaneous. Psy-chology, Public Policy, and Law, 6, 1113-1137.

Finkel, N. J., & Groscup, J. L. (1997). Crime prototypes, objective versussubject responsibility, and a commonsense balance. Law and HumanBehavior, 21, 209-230.

Finkel, N. J., & Sales, B. D. (1997). Commonsense justice: Old roots,germinant ground, and new shoots. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law,3(2/3), 227-241.

Gorden, R. A. (1993). The effect of strong versus weak evidence on assess-ment of race-stereotypic and race-non-stereotypic crimes. Journal ofApplied Social Psychology, 23, 971-983.

Gorden, R. A., Bindrim, T. A., McNicholas, M. L., & Walden, T. L. (1988).Perceptions of blue-collar and white-collar crime. The effect of defendantrace and simulated juror decisions. Journal of Social Psychology, 128,191-197.

Haney, C. (1995a). The social context of capital murder. Social histories andthe logic of mitigation. Santa Clara Law Review, 35, 547-609.

Haney, C. (1995b). Taking capital jurors seriously. Indiana Law Journal, 70,1223-1232.

Haney, C. (1997). Commonsense justice and capital punishment: Problem-atizing the ‘‘will of the people.’’ Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 3,303-337.

Jones, E. E., & Davis, K. E. (1965). From acts to dispositions: The attri-bution process in person perception. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in

2414 DUNN ET AL.

experimental social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 219-226). New York: Aca-demic Press.

Lewis, C. F., Baranoski, M. V., Buchanan, J. A., & Benedek, E. P. (1998).Factors associated with weapon use in filicide. Journal of Forensic Sci-ences, 43, 613-618.

Lymburner, J. A., & Roesch, R. (1999). The insanity defense: Five years ofresearch (1993-1997). International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 22,213-240.

Marleau, J. D., Poulin, B., Webanck, T., Roy, R., & Laporte, L. (1999).Paternal filicide: A study of 10 men. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 44,57-67.

McKee, G. R., & Shea, S. J. (1998). Maternal filicide: A cross-nationalcomparison. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 54, 679-687.

Oliver, M. B. (1994). Portrayals of crime, race, and aggression in ‘‘reality-based’’ police shows: A content analysis. Journal of Broadcasting andElectronic Media, 38, 179-192.

Perlin, M. L. (1990). Psychodynamics and the insanity defense: ‘‘Ordinarycommon sense’’ and heuristic reasoning. Nebraska Law Review, 69, 3-70.

Profiling 46,000 cities, villages, towns, townships, and podunks across Amer-ica. (2000). Retrieved August 3, 2000, from http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/popinfo.php

Resnick, P. J. (1969). Child murder by parents: A psychiatric review offilicide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 325-334.

Russo, N. F. (1976). The motherhood mandate. Journal of Social Issues,32(3), 143-153.

Sadoff, R. L. (1995). Mothers who kill their children. Psychiatric Annals, 25,601-605.

Silverman, R. A., & Kennedy, L. W. (1988). Women who kill their children.Violence and Victims, 3, 113-127.

Simpson, A., & Stanton, J. (2000). Maternal filicide: A reformulationof factors relevant to risk. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 10,136-147.

Smith, K., & Studebaker, J. (1996). What do you expect? The influence ofpeople’s prior knowledge of crime categories on fact finding. Law andHuman Behavior, 20, 517-552.

Sparks, E. E. (1998). Overcoming stereotypes of mothers in the AfricanAmerican context. In D. L. Anselmi & A. L. Law (Eds.), Questionsof gender: Perspectives and paradoxes (pp. 220-232). Boston:McGraw-Hill.

Stalans, L. J., & Diamond, S. S. (1990). Formation and change in lay eval-uations of judicial leniency: Misperceptions and discontent. Law andHuman Behavior, 14, 199-214.


Stanton, J., & Simpson, A. (2002). Filicide: A review. International Journalof Law and Psychiatry, 25, 1-14.

Sweeney, L., & Haney, C. (1992). The influence of race on sentencing:A meta-analytic review of experimental studies. Behavioral Sciences andthe Law, 13, 61-80.

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty:Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124-1131.

U.S. General Accounting Office. (1990). Death penalty sentencing: Researchindicates pattern of racial disparities. Washington DC: Author.

Vanamo, T., Kauppi, A., Karkola, K., Merikanto, J., & Rasanen, E. (2001).Intra-familial child homicide in Finland, 1970–1994: Incidence, causes ofdeath, and demographic characteristics. Forensic Science International,117, 199-204.

White, J. W., & Kowalski, R. M. (1998). Deconstructing the myth of thenonaggressive woman: A feminist analysis. In D. L. Anselmi & A. L.Law (Eds.), Questions of gender (pp. 390-404). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Wilczynski, A. (1995). Risk factors for parental child homicide: Results ofan English study. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 7, 193-225.

Wilczynski, A. (1997). Mad or bad? Child killers, gender, and the courts.British Journal of Criminology, 37, 419-434.

Wilczynski, A., & Morris, A. (1993). Parents who kill their children. Crim-inal Law Review, 1, 31-36.

Willis-Esqueda, C. W. (1997). European American students’ perceptions ofcrimes committed by five racial groups. Journal of Applied Social Psy-chology, 27, 1406-1420.

Willis-Esqueda, C., & Swanson, K. (1997). The influence of alcohol use andcrime stereotypicality on responsibility assignments for Native Ameri-cans and European Americans. American Indian Culture and ResearchJournal, 21, 229-254.

Worrall, A. (1981). Out of place: Female offenders in court. ProbationJournal, 28(3), 90-93.

2416 DUNN ET AL.

Kerri Dunn publishes from prison

Documents

Transcript of Kerri Dunn publishes from prison