Assessing the Capriciousness of Death Penalty Charging
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TL;DR
It is shown that about two-thirds of the potential systemic capriciousness is removed by the explanatory variables available, and that one-third remaining is dependent on inherently unstable features of charging practices that necessarily produce capriciouslyness.
Abstract
We discuss capriciousness in decisions to charge homicide defendants with capital crimes. We propose using Shannon Information to assess capriciousness in a charging system and apply Shannon Information to analyze new data from San Francisco County, California. We show that about two-thirds of the potential systemic capriciousness is removed by the explanatory variables available. The one-third remaining is dependent on inherently unstable features of charging practices that necessarily produce capriciousness.