Felony-murder and community sentiment: Testing the Supreme Court's assertions.

The controversy over capital felony-murder resurfaced in two recent Supreme Court cases (Enmund v. Florida, 1982;Tison v. Arizona, 1987), where two bitterly divided Courts made highly questionable assertions regarding where community sentiment stood on this matter. To test these assertions about the felony-murder rule and the accessorial liability theory, two experiments were run (N=275, 73% death qualified, andN=212, 81% death qualified) where mock jurors rendered verdicts and sentences for four defendants who varied in their level of culpability and level of participation in the crime. To test the Supreme Court's reasoning, subjects rendered decisions and reasons using the “ninth Justice” paradigm, where they could “reverse and remand” or “let stand” the death sentence for felony-murder. The empirical evidence indicates that subjects clearly and consistently reject the accessorial liability theory and the felony-murder rule, and these results refute the majority's assertions inTison about where community sentiment stands.