Is Killing Wrong?: A Study in Pure Sociology

3. The Vertical Dimension

The wealthy pass through life differently. They enjoy more desirable food, clothing, and shelter. They can devote themselves to the pursuit of leisure and luxury. They are healthier and live longer (see, e.g., Gilbert and kahl 1993; Williams and Collins 1995). They receive more education, and are enriched by a wider variety of ideas and art forms. They experience more of the world’s wonders, and escape more of its horrors. They demand and are granted more deference and attention. Even their jokes are funnier. But law promises to treat everybody equally. Do the advantages of wealth stop at law’s door or do they cross its threshold too? Some years ago a researcher conducted an experiment that investigated whether wealthy defendants receive the same outcomes as their less wealthy counterparts in legal trials. In order to hold all other factors constant, the researcher constructed a hypothetical criminal case in which a man was accused of murdering his wife (uxoricide) under ambiguous circumstances. The case had two conditions. In one condition, the defendant was identified as “Dr. Williams,” a physician. In the other condition, the defendant was identified as “Mr. Williams,” a member of a less prestigious profession. Undergraduates were asked to rate the legal guilt of one of the defendants (rosoff 1989). Taking the inquiry a step further, the researcher then looked at what happens when both defendants are of high economic status, though one is higher than the other. Using the same ambiguous case of uxoricide, the researcher constructed another two conditions. The first condition identified the defendant as a surgeon, the second condition as a dermatologist. The researcher chose those specialties because in earlier work he had established them as “the alpha and omega in the status hierarchy of medicine.” The case description was read by 3 THE VERTICAL DIMENSION the Vertical dimension 37 undergraduates who were asked to render one of four verdicts: guilty of first-degree murder; guilty of second-degree murder; guilty of involuntary manslaughter; and not guilty. The verdicts were all defined in a manner consistent with the law. If legal advantage is defined as the probability of not being convicted or being convicted of a lesser offense, then each of these experiments has three logical outcomes: 1. The wealthier defendants were more advantaged. 2. The less wealthy defendants were more advantaged. 3. neither the wealthier nor the less wealthy defendants had systematic advantages over the other. Before turning to the results of the experiments, let us see which result Black’s theory predicts. BLACK’S THEORY OF LAW Wealth and its distribution constitutes the vertical dimensions of social space (Black 1976: chap. 2). Social interaction, including homicide , has a location, direction, and distance in vertical space, as measured by the relative wealth of the participants. Upward homicides , recall, are those committed by poorer against wealthier people, and downward homicides are those committed by wealthier against poorer people. The greater the wealth disparity between the parties, the greater the vertical distance of the homicide. Since the direction of social control is the opposite of that of the offense, upward homicides give rise to downward law and popular justice, while downward homicides elicit upward law and popular justice. For law, Black posits four broad principles, each encapsulated in a testable proposition (1976: chap 2). The first three are variations on a common theme: downward law is greater than upward law; in a downward direction, law increases with vertical distance; in an upward direction, law decreases with vertical distance. The fourth principle is that law is greater at high-status than lowstatus elevations. Hence, the higher the status of the principals, the more likely the defendant is to be prosecuted, convicted, convicted of a legally more serious degree of homicide, and to receive a severe sentence.1 Howdothefourprinciplescombine?Blackpredictsthatthequantity of law will evince a systematic, hierarchical pattern. Holding constant 38 Is Killing Wrong? the conduct of the parties, upward offenses should attract the most law, followed by high lateral offenses (among the wealthy), followed by low lateral offenses (among the poor), followed, finally, by downward offenses. applying these principles to the uxoricide experiments yields a clear prediction: Since people generally marry within their social class, and since spouses share each other’s wealth and social standing anyway, the killing of a wealthy doctor’s wife should attract more law than the killing of a less wealthy person’s wife. That is indeed...