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100			_aUlmer, Jeffery T. Zajac, Gary and Rodriguez, Ashley E. _955759
245			_aGeographic arbitrariness in capital punishment: Death as an inhabited institution
260			_aAmerican Sociological Review
300			_a90(2), Apr, 2025: p.318-348
520			_aThe U.S. criminal legal system is highly localized. This reality extends to what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer called “geographic arbitrariness” in the implementation of the death penalty. The inhabited institutions perspective, augmented with concepts from Weber’s sociology of law, frames our analysis of how a local process that is not arbitrary—prosecutors’ interpretations of statutory aggravating factors—result in geographic arbitrariness in the aggregate, in which defendants’ exposure to the death penalty is strongly conditioned by locality. We utilize data coded from prosecutors’ office case files and court docket transcripts, as well as interviews with current and former District Attorneys and Assistants in Pennsylvania, to illuminate prosecutorial death penalty decisions and their interpretations of statutory aggravating factors. Our analysis is driven by two sets of questions. First, how do prosecutors differ in the filing of specific aggravating factors in the face of similar factual circumstances? Second, how do prosecutors evaluate the meaning of the aggravators and decide whether to seek the death penalty? We show that prosecutors inhabit death penalty statutory law by (1) defining statutory aggravators, drawing comparisons and contrasts from experience with prior cases; (2) making strategic assessments of how local juries will view evidence; (3) normatively evaluating individual cases, offenders, and—crucially—victims; and (4) subjectively evaluating the legal value of aggravating factors themselves. Because ambiguity in statutory aggravators necessitates differing interpretations by prosecutors, death penalty law ensures geographic arbitrariness.- Reproduced https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00031224241298008
650			_aDeath penalty, Prosecutors, Sentencing, Law, Courts, Institutions. _955760
773			_aAmerican Sociological Review
942			_cAR