Crime and Punishment: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Racial Bias on Capital Sentencing Decisions

Racism has left an indelible stain on American history and remains a powerful social force that continues to shape crime and punishment in the contemporary United States. In this article, I discuss the socio-legal construction of race, explore how racism infected American culture, and trace the racist history of capital punishment from the Colonial Era to the present. After framing the death penalty in cultural and historical context, I report original empirical results from one of the largest studies (n = 3,284) of mock juror capital sentencing decisions published to date. My results show that mock jurors who self reported racial biases were 8.8% more likely to pass the death qualification and were 18.3% to 18.4% more likely to sentence a Black defendant to death than a White defendant with all other factors held constant. Death qualifying the mock jury increased the probability of empaneling one or more of these racially biased mock jurors by 8.4%. After reviewing these results in the context of previous research and Supreme Court jurisprudence, I argue that death qualifying a capital jury violates an African American defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury because the death qualification increases the likelihood of empaneling racially biased, partial jurors. Finally, I argue that voir dire fails to provide an adequate safeguard to this threat, argue that the right to inquire into juror racial biases during voir dire should apply more broadly, and make recommendations to improve current voir dire practices

Long-term trends in human body size track regional variation in subsistence transitions and growth acceleration linked to dairying

Evidence for a reduction in stature between Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers has been interpreted as reflective of declines in health, however, our current understanding of this trend fails to account for the complexity of cultural and dietary transitions or the possible causes of phenotypic change. The agricultural transition was extended in primary centers of domestication and abrupt in regions characterized by demic diffusion. In regions such as Northern Europe where foreign domesticates were difficult to establish, there is strong evidence for natural selection for lactase persistence in relation to dairying. We employ broad-scale analyses of diachronic variation in stature and body mass in the Levant, Europe, the Nile Valley, South Asia, and China, to test three hypotheses about the timing of subsistence shifts and human body size, that: 1) the adoption of agriculture led to a decrease in stature, 2) there were different trajectories in regions of in situ domestication or cultural diffusion of agriculture; and 3) increases in stature and body mass are observed in regions with evidence for selection for lactase persistence. Our results demonstrate that 1) decreases in stature preceded the origins of agriculture in some regions; 2) the Levant and China, regions of in situ domestication of species and an extended period of mixed foraging and agricultural subsistence, had stable stature and body mass over time; and 3) stature and body mass increases in Central and Northern Europe coincide with the timing of selective sweeps for lactase persistence, providing support for the "Lactase Growth Hypothesis.

Crime and Punishment: An Empirical Study of the Effects of Racial Bias on Capital Sentencing Decisions

Racism has left an indelible stain on American history and remains a powerful social force that continues to shape crime and punishment in the contemporary United States. In this article, I discuss the socio-legal construction of race, explore how racism infected American culture, and trace the racist history of capital punishment from the Colonial Era to the present. After framing the death penalty in cultural and historical context, I report original empirical results from one of the largest studies (n = 3,284) of mock juror capital sentencing decisions published to date. My results show that mock jurors who self reported racial biases were 8.8% more likely to pass the death qualification and were 18.3% to 18.4% more likely to sentence a Black defendant to death than a White defendant with all other factors held constant. Death qualifying the mock jury increased the probability of empaneling one or more of these racially biased mock jurors by 8.4%. After reviewing these results in the context of previous research and Supreme Court jurisprudence, I argue that death qualifying a capital jury violates an African American defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury because the death qualification increases the likelihood of empaneling racially biased, partial jurors. Finally, I argue that voir dire fails to provide an adequate safeguard to this threat, argue that the right to inquire into juror racial biases during voir dire should apply more broadly, and make recommendations to improve current voir dire practices

Long-term trends in human body size track regional variation in subsistence transitions and growth acceleration linked to dairying

Evidence for a reduction in stature between Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers has been interpreted as reflective of declines in health, however, our current understanding of this trend fails to account for the complexity of cultural and dietary transitions or the possible causes of phenotypic change. The agricultural transition was extended in primary centers of domestication and abrupt in regions characterized by demic diffusion. In regions such as Northern Europe where foreign domesticates were difficult to establish, there is strong evidence for natural selection for lactase persistence in relation to dairying. We employ broad-scale analyses of diachronic variation in stature and body mass in the Levant, Europe, the Nile Valley, South Asia, and China, to test three hypotheses about the timing of subsistence shifts and human body size, that: 1) the adoption of agriculture led to a decrease in stature, 2) there were different trajectories in regions of in situ domestication or cultural diffusion of agriculture; and 3) increases in stature and body mass are observed in regions with evidence for selection for lactase persistence. Our results demonstrate that 1) decreases in stature preceded the origins of agriculture in some regions; 2) the Levant and China, regions of in situ domestication of species and an extended period of mixed foraging and agricultural subsistence, had stable stature and body mass over time; and 3) stature and body mass increases in Central and Northern Europe coincide with the timing of selective sweeps for lactase persistence, providing support for the "Lactase Growth Hypothesis.

Long-term trends in human body size track regional variation in subsistence transitions and growth acceleration linked to dairying

Evidence for a reduction in stature between Mesolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers has been interpreted as reflective of declines in health, however, our current understanding of this trend fails to account for the complexity of cultural and dietary transitions or the possible causes of phenotypic change. The agricultural transition was extended in primary centers of domestication and abrupt in regions characterized by demic diffusion. In regions such as Northern Europe where foreign domesticates were difficult to establish, there is strong evidence for natural selection for lactase persistence in relation to dairying. We employ broad-scale analyses of diachronic variation in stature and body mass in the Levant, Europe, the Nile Valley, South Asia, and China, to test three hypotheses about the timing of subsistence shifts and human body size, that: 1) the adoption of agriculture led to a decrease in stature, 2) there were different trajectories in regions of in situ domestication or cultural diffusion of agriculture; and 3) increases in stature and body mass are observed in regions with evidence for selection for lactase persistence. Our results demonstrate that 1) decreases in stature preceded the origins of agriculture in some regions; 2) the Levant and China, regions of in situ domestication of species and an extended period of mixed foraging and agricultural subsistence, had stable stature and body mass over time; and 3) stature and body mass increases in Central and Northern Europe coincide with the timing of selective sweeps for lactase persistence, providing support for the "Lactase Growth Hypothesis.

The spread of steppe and Iranian-related ancestry in the islands of the western Mediterranean

Steppe-pastoralist-related ancestry reached Central Europe by at least 2500 bc, whereas Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 bc. However, the spread of these ancestries into the western Mediterranean, where they have contributed to many populations that live today, remains poorly understood. Here, we generated genome-wide ancient-DNA data from the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia, increasing the number of individuals with reported data from 5 to 66. The oldest individual from the Balearic Islands (~2400 bc) carried ancestry from steppe pastoralists that probably derived from west-to-east migration from Iberia, although two later Balearic individuals had less ancestry from steppe pastoralists. In Sicily, steppe pastoralist ancestry arrived by ~2200 bc, in part from Iberia; Iranian-related ancestry arrived by the midsecond millennium bc, contemporary to its previously documented spread to the Aegean; and there was large-scale population replacement after the Bronze Age. In Sardinia, nearly all ancestry derived from the island’s early farmers until the first millennium bc, with the exception of an outlier from the third millennium bc, who had primarily North African ancestry and who—along with an approximately contemporary Iberian—documents widespread Africa-to-Europe gene flow in the Chalcolithic. Major immigration into Sardinia began in the first millennium bc and, at present, no more than 56–62% of Sardinian ancestry is from its first farmers. This value is lower than previous estimates, highlighting that Sardinia, similar to every other region in Europe, has been a stage for major movement and mixtures of people