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Description & Citation--Study No. 4540

Bibliographic Description

ICPSR Study No.:4540
 
Title:Investigation and Prosecution of Homicide Cases in the United States, 1995-2000: The Process for Federal Involvement
 
Principal Investigator(s):Newton, Phyllis J., University of Chicago. National Opinion Research Center (NORC)
 
  Johnson, Candace M., University of Chicago. National Opinion Research Center (NORC)
 
  Mulcahy, Timothy M., University of Chicago. National Opinion Research Center (NORC)
 

Scope of Study

Summary:This study addressed questions related to potential geographic and racial disparity in the investigation and prosecution of federal capital cases and examined the process by which criminal cases, especially homicide cases, enter the federal criminal justice system. The primary method of data collection used was face-to-face interviewing of key criminal justice officials within each district included in the study. Between 2000 and 2004, the researchers visited nine federal districts and interviewed all actors in the state and federal criminal justice systems who potentially would play a role in determining whether a homicide case was investigated and prosecuted in the state or federal systems. The study focused on homicide cases because federal homicides represented the offense of conviction in all capital case convictions in the federal system under the 2000 and 2001 Department of Justice (DOJ) reports (see U.S. Dept. of Justice, "The Federal Death Penalty System: A Statistical Survey (1988-2000)," Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, September 12, 2000, and U.S. Dept. of Justice, "The Federal Death Penalty System: Supplementary Data, Analysis and Revised Protocols for Capital Case Review," Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, June 6, 2001). In addition, federally related homicides are frequently involved with drug, gang, and/or organized crime investigations. Using 11 standardized interview protocols, developed in consultation with members of the project's advisory group, research staff interviewed local investigative agencies (police chief or his/her representative, section heads for homicide, drug, gang, or organized crime units as applicable to the agency structure), federal investigative agencies (special agent-in-charge or designee, section heads of relevant units), local prosecutors (district attorney, assistant district attorney, including the line attorneys and section heads), and defense attorneys who practiced in federal court. Due to the extensive number of issues to be covered with the U.S. attorneys' offices, interviews were conducted with: (1) the U.S. attorney or designated representative, (2) section heads, and (3) assistant U.S. attorneys (AUSAs) within the respective sections. Because the U.S. attorneys were appointed following the change in the U.S. presidency in 2000, a slightly altered U.S. attorney questionnaire was designed for interviews with the former U.S. attorney who was in office during the study period of 1995 through 2000. In some instances, because the project focus was on issues and processes from 1995 through 2000, a second individual with longer tenure was chosen to be interviewed simultaneously when the head or section head was newer to the position. In some instances, when a key respondent was unavailable during the site visit and no acceptable alternative could be identified, arrangements were made to complete the interview by telephone after the visit. The interviews included questions related to the nature of the local crime problem, agency crime priorities, perceived benefits of the federal over the local process, local and federal resources, relationships between and among agencies, the nature and target of joint task forces, policy and agreements, definitions and understanding of federal jurisdiction, federal investigative strategies, case flow, and attitudes toward the death penalty.
 
URL:Death Penalty Studies
 
Subject Term(s):capital punishment, case processing, criminal justice system, district courts, ethnicity, federal courts, jurisdiction, race, state courts
 
Geographic Coverage:United States
 
Data Collection Notes:(1) The interview data are currently not available, but when available, the data will be accessible only in the ICPSR Data Enclave. See the ICPSR Web site for information about the ICPSR Data Enclave (link). (2) The technical report is available. It is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter provides a brief background on death penalty research in general, the federal death penalty, the decision-making process prosecutors undergo when deciding whether to recommend the death penalty in capital-eligible cases, previous research studies that have examined the death penalty in a number of states, and a brief primer on the federal criminal justice system in the United States, including its 94 federal districts, federal criminal law, and how the federalization of some crimes, including homicide, contributed to this study's research questions. The second chapter provides the methodology used in conducting the study research, including decisions regarding sampling, advisory group input, the interview development process, the interview process, obstacles encountered, and the research questions and the means by which they were addressed. The technical report includes a separate chapter on each of the four federal districts analyzed, each describing how decisions are made regarding whether federal investigators and prosecutors become involved with the processing of homicide cases. Each district chapter contains three primary sections. The first section provides a context for the district under discussion (region of the country, the size and population of the district, the racial and ethnic characteristics of the district's population, and a general discussion of the crime and homicide rates for the district), while attempting to avoid direct identification of the district or the state in which it resides. The second section provides a review of the federal cases submitted to the Department of Justice Capital Case Unit (DOJ CCU). And the final section provides a discussion of the interview data from each of the districts. More than 150 officials were interviewed in the four districts discussed in the technical report. In writing these interview findings sections, the researchers followed a strict rule only to relay the data as reported by respondents -- what the respondents had to say about each of the topic areas -- with little, if any, attempt to analyze or discuss the findings. Quotation marks reflect quotations from the interview documentation. While these quotations are as close to what the respondent said as possible, they represent the information in the interview documentation and may not represent with 100 percent accuracy the actual words of the respondent. They, however, do represent the meaning of what the respondent said. The data are summarized at the end of each chapter and describe the overarching factors that contributed to cases, in general, and homicide cases, in particular, being investigated and/or prosecuted in the federal system. The final chapter brings together the findings of the various districts and provides a comparison of these findings. The technical report's analysis is limited to four of the nine districts visited. Districts selected and described within the technical report are referred to as Districts A, B, C, and D. Project staff selected districts for which the interviews had been completed early in the process and for which the greatest amount of analysis had been completed. The four districts should not be considered representative of the original ten. They represent four regions of the country, one district without state capital punishment, and two districts with relatively few cases forwarded to the CCU at DOJ for capital punishment consideration and authorization to charge a case capitally. Some of the other districts visited had decision-making processes that diverged widely from those presented in the report. The researchers hope to complete the analysis of the other five districts at a later time.
 

Methodology

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