Scott Phillips

University of Denver, Sociology and Criminology, Faculty Member

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Scott Phillips is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver. He is engaged in two lines of scholarship – one empirical, one theoretical. His empirical research focuses on the arbitrary administration of capital punishment. His theoretical research focuses on Donald Black's new and innovative ideas regarding human conflict. In a recent book, he combines those interests: Geometrical Justice: The Death Penalty in America (Scott Phillips and Mark Cooney, Routledge 2022). He teaches the following courses: Capital Punishment; Conflict and the Law; Crime over Time; Criminology; Statistics; and Wrongful Conviction.

For a list of my publications, click here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wnmehqwAAAAJ&hl=en

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Papers by Scott Phillips

Sacred Victims: Fifty Years of Data on Victim Race and Sex as Sacred Victims: Fifty Years of Data on Victim Race and Sex as Predictors of Execution Predictors of Execution

by Scott Phillips and Sam Kamin

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 2024

In this essay, we update and expand David Baldus's famous study of Georgia homicides in the 1970s... more In this essay, we update and expand David Baldus's famous study of Georgia homicides in the 1970s to uncover the impact of the race and sex of homicide victims on whether a defendant was sentenced to death and ultimately executed. We show that the odds of a death sentence were sixteen times greater if the victim was a White woman than if the victim was a Black man, even when other factors that might explain the disparity were taken into account. Furthermore, we identified a clear hierarchy among victims with regard to whether a death sentence was ultimately carried out. Among the defendants who were sent to death row for killing a White woman, 30% were executed. But the share drops to 19% if the victim was a White man, 10% if the victim was a Black woman, and 0% if the victim was a Black man. We then use contemporary, nationwide Supplemental Homicide Report (SHR) data to show that the effect we identified in Georgia in the 1970s generalizes to the nation as a whole and to the present day. We argue that these disparities, which cannot be explained by factors extrinsic to the victim's race and sex, are further evidence that the ultimate question of who lives and

format_quoteNo defendants sentenced to death for killings of Black male victims were executed, while 30% of those sentenced for White female victims were executed.format_quote

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Whom the state kills (condensed for Amicus)

Amicus Journal, 2021

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Whom the state kills

Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 2020

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A systematic lottery: The Texas death penalty, 1976 to 2016.

by Scott Phillips and Trent Steidley

Columbia Human Rights Law Review , 2020

Although the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Hidalgo v. Arizona (2018), Justice Breyer recogni... more Although the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Hidalgo v. Arizona (2018), Justice Breyer recognized that empirical research regarding the arbitrary administration of the death penalty could ultimately be used to strike down capital punishment. However, empirical research would only be efficacious if the data were more rigorous than those presented by Hidalgo. Focusing on Texas from 1976 to 2016, our research answers the call for robust data collected over a long period of time. Our findings indicate that the death penalty was rarely imposed among eligible cases-a trend that has accelerated in recent decades. However, the death penalty was considerably more likely to be imposed if the defendant killed a white female. Such patterns suggest that the modern Texas death penalty is a systematic lottery: death sentences are so rare as to be virtually random, yet death sentences are patterned by the race and gender of the victim. Defying strict logic, the Texas death penalty is indiscriminate yet discriminatory.

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Irremedial work and act-person merger: Constructing irredeemable selves in death penalty trials

Sociological Forum

Irremedial work is an interpretive practice aimed at establishing a vital connection between a pe... more Irremedial work is an interpretive practice aimed at establishing a vital connection between a person's untoward behavior and his true self. Fifteen death penalty trial transcripts are employed as strategic research materials to examine how an individual's transgressions and the thoughts and feelings purportedly associated with his misconduct are merged with his self. A qualitative content analysis of these data identifies four recurring themes in the prosecution's efforts to fuse defendants' alleged crimes with their real selves: sacrilege, culpability, malevolence, and act-person merger. The argument presented in this study can be extended by investigating bottom-up irremedial work, the responses of those defined as irredeemable, and by considering cases where act-person merger is experienced as an authentic expression of an individual's essential self.

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When will academics contest intellectual conflict?

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

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The worst of the worst: Heinous crimes and erroneous evidence

Hofstra Law Review

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Little by little: The case of Duane Edward Buck

Amicus

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Social geometry and the success of moral ideas: The case of capital punishment

International Journal of Law, Crime, and Justice

argues that the success of an idea depends on its social geometry. We extend Black's theory of id... more argues that the success of an idea depends on its social geometry. We extend Black's theory of ideas to include moral ideas e statements about the nature of right and wrong. To do so, we focus on former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall's hypothesis regarding death penalty opinions: If Americans were fully informed about the problems surrounding capital punishment they would become opposed to the sanction. Marshall's prediction seems to be supported by college classroom experiments in which students' support for the death penalty plummets after taking a course on the topic. But existing experiments have a curious methodological feature e the professors were "forthright" about their personal opposition to capital punishment. By injecting a moral idea into the experiment e the death penalty is wrong e the professors created a conundrum: Did students turn against the death penalty because information about the problematic nature of capital punishment was compelling, or because they gravitated toward a moral idea espoused by a close superior? The findings from our neutral college classroom experiment support the latter interpretation.

format_quoteClassroom experiments reveal a temporary drop in death penalty support, but students revert to original views within years, indicating limited lasting change.format_quote

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The electronic pillory: Social time and hostility toward capital murderers

Law and Society Review

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Disquieting discretion: Race, geography and the Colorado death penalty in the first decade of the 21st century

Denver University Law Review

This Article demonstrates through original statistical research that prosecutors in Colorado were... more This Article demonstrates through original statistical research that prosecutors in Colorado were more likely to seek the death penalty against minority defendants than against white defendants. Moreover, defendants in Colorado's Eighteenth Judicial District were more likely to face a death prosecution than defendants elsewhere in the state. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that even when one controls for the differential rates at which different groups commit statutorily death-eligible murders, non-white defendants and defendants in the Eighteenth Judicial District were still more likely than others to face a death penalty prosecution. Even when the heinousness of the crime is accounted for, the race of the accused and the place of the crime are statistically significant predictors of whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty. We discuss the implications of this disparate impact on the constitutionality of Colorado's death penalty regime, concluding that the Colorado statute does not meet the dictates of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.

format_quoteThe death sentencing rate in Colorado was only 0.56% (3 of 539) during the study, significantly lower than the constitutional threshold of 15-20%.format_quote

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Is the modern American death penalty a fatal lottery? Texas as a conservative test

Laws

In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court was presented with data indicating that 15% to 20%... more In Furman v. Georgia (1972), the Supreme Court was presented with data indicating that 15% to 20% of death-eligible defendants were actually sentenced to death. Based on such a negligible death sentence rate, some Justices concluded that the imposition of death was random and capricious-a fatal lottery. Later, the Court assumed in Gregg v. Georgia (1976) that guided discretion statutes would eliminate the constitutional infirmities identified in Furman: If state legislatures narrowed the pool of death-eligible defendants to the "worst of the worst" then most would be sentenced to death, eliminating numerical arbitrariness. However, recent research suggests that numerical arbitrariness remains, as the death sentence rate falls below the Furman threshold in California (11%), Connecticut (4%), and Colorado (less than 1%). The current research estimates the death sentence rate in Texas. Interestingly, Texas provides a conservative test. In contrast to most states, the Texas statute does not include broad aggravators that substantially enlarge the pool of death-eligible defendants and therefore depress the death sentence rate. Nonetheless, the death sentence rate in Texas during the period from 2006 to 2010 ranges from 3% to 6% (depending on assumptions made about the data). The same pattern holds true in the key counties that send the largest number of defendants to death row: Harris (Houston), Dallas (Dallas), Tarrant (Fort Worth and Arlington), and Bexar (San Antonio). Thus, the data suggest that Texas can be added to the list of states in which capital punishment is unconstitutional as administered. If the death sentence rate in Texas runs afoul of the Furman principle then the prognosis for other states is not encouraging. OPEN ACCESS Laws 2014, 3 86

format_quoteTexas exhibits a troubling death sentence rate, suggesting its capital punishment system may be unconstitutional under Furman criteria.format_quote

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Media coverage of capital murder: Exceptions sustain the rule

Justice Quarterly

Scholars have demonstrated that prominent media coverage of crime shapes the creation of public p... more Scholars have demonstrated that prominent media coverage of crime shapes the creation of public policies. More subtly, such coverage can also sustain existing policies. In this paper, we ask: which capital crimes captivate the media and thus sustain popular support for the death penalty? To answer the question, we examine newspaper coverage of capital murders that occurred in Harris County (Houston), Texas between 1992 and 1999. Our findings reveal that prominent media coverage presents a distorted reality in which brutal crimes tend to be committed by minority offenders against vulnerable, "worthy" victims. Thus, the public mandate for capital punishment is sustained by atypical crimes that conform to existing cultural templates about criminal threat and victimization.