Title

Knowledge And Death Penalty Opinion: The Marshall Hypotheses Revisited

Keywords

Capital punishment; Death penalty; Marshall hypothesis; Public opinion

Abstract

This study tests the three hypotheses derived from the written opinion of Justice Thurgood Marshall in Furman v Georgia in 1972. Subjects completed questionnaires at the beginning and the end of the fall a semester. Experimental group subjects were enrolled in a death penalty class, while control group subjects were enrolled in another criminal justice class. The death penalty class was the experimental stimulus. Findings provided strong support for the first and third hypotheses, i.e., subjects were generally lacking in death penalty knowledge before the experimental stimulus, and death penalty proponents who scored "high" on a retribution index did not change their death penalty opinions despite exposure to death penalty knowledge. Marshall's second hypothesis-that death penalty knowledge and death penalty support were inversely related-was not supported by the data. Two unexpected findings were that death penalty proponents who scored "low" on a retribution index also did not change their death penalty opinions after becoming more informed about the subject, and that death penalty knowledge did not alter subjects' initial retributive positions. Suggestions for future research are provided. © 2013 Southern Criminal Justice Association.

Publication Date

1-1-2014

Publication Title

American Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume

39

Issue

3

Number of Pages

642-659

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-013-9229-z

Socpus ID

84905562770 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84905562770

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS