Although clemency is often an offender's final prospect to avoid execution within the death penalty context, prior research concerning clemency decisions remains limited by the fact that it is often atheoretical and researchers have used data more than a decade old. This study specifically placed clemency decisions within a focal concerns framework and examined death row inmates who were either executed or granted clemency between 1984 and 2008. This study used logistic regression as its primary modeling technique to examine whether measures of focal concerns theory were predictive of clemency decisions. While the current measures for offender blameworthiness and protection of the community were not found to influence clemency decisions, practical constraints and consequences measured by political factors and regional location along with offender characteristics were found to predict such decisions. Female offenders, non-white offenders, and offenders with lower educational levels were most likely to be granted clemency. Whereas lame duck governors were more likely to grant clemency, governors in southern states were less likely to grant clemency. The odds of clemency were reduced with each year an offender served.

Inledning: Den skapade bilden av att invandrare skulle vara farligare än den infödda populationen i landet riskerar leda till en undermedveten strukturell diskriminering som genomsyrar det västerländska samhället och således även rättssystemet. Tidigare forskning har visat att etniska minoriteter utsatts för negativ särbehandling vid såväl polisens ingripande som vid domstolens beslut. Denna särbehandling kan tänkas leda till en förlust av rättssystemets legitimitet och därmed till en ökad brottslighet i samhället. Som teoretiskt ramverk för problemet användes social conditioning theory och focal concerns theory. Syfte: Att undersöka huruvida det bland svenska juriststudenter förekommer negativ särbehandling av etniska minoriteter. Metod: En enkätstudie genomfördes på totalt 210 juriststudenter från fyra universitet i Sverige. Enkäten bestod av två fallbeskrivningar med åtta frågor till respektive fallbeskrivning. Av urvalet fick 104 studenter läsa om gärningsmän med typiskt skandinaviska namn och 106 studenter fick läsa om gärningsmän med typiskt arabiska namn. Mann Whitney-U test genomfördes mellan respondenterna som läst om skandinaviska respektive arabiska gärningsmän. Därtill undersöktes Spearmans rangkorrelation mellan respondenternas attityder till våldsbrott. Resultat: Vid grov misshandel uppfattades gärningsmannen med arabiskt namn vara farligare för samhället än gärningsmannen med skandinaviskt namn. Vidare fanns tendenser till att respondenterna undermedvetet uppfattade gärningsmannen med arabiskt namn som mer förekommande vid rån än gärningsmannen med skandinaviskt namn. Diskussion: Respondenterna visade tendenser till undermedvetna fördomar om etniska minoriteter, men lät inte dessa fördomar påverka det valda straffet. Resultatet visar att stereotypa fördomar kan finnas på ett undermedvetet plan, vilket torde kunna leda till negativ särbehandling i vissa situationer när det kommer till domstolsfrågor. Resultaten är i linje med tidigare forskning och studiens teoretiska ramverk, men påvisar samtidigt den komplexitet som ligger bakom problemet. / <p>2016-06-01</p>

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Legitimacy is a necessary precondition for a well-functioning judicial system and it can be achieved in a variety of ways. One way of achieving legitimacy, that the Swedish legislator has chosen, is to constitute a system where lay judges work alongside professional judges in the Swedish courts. Lay participation in the courts are thought to fulfill many purposes and one of them is that they are expected to add new knowledge and additional perspectives to the courts. In other words, the Swedish legislator expect the lay judges to have opinions that, if not contrast then at least, complement the opinions of the professional judge. Nevertheless, previous research on Swedish judgements has found that the four members of the court are completely unanimous in about 95% of the judgments in criminal matters that the Swedish district courts delivers. By conducting a survey study this thesis shows that Swedish lay judges and professional judges has differing opinions in a number of matters that, according to the focal concerns theory, influence their sentencing decisions. The results of the study also show that lay judges, in comparison to the professional judges, are more prone to advocate for imprisonment if the perpetrator is deemed guilty. Furthermore, by combining earlier research and theories on the subject, the thesis proposes an explanation to why such a high level of consensus can be observed in the delivered judgements. Lastly, the thesis discusses what implications the study’s results have on the arguments that the Swedish legislator use to justify Sweden’s system of lay judges.