An empirical analysis of the role of mitigation in capital sentencing in North Carolina before and after Mckoy v. North Carolina (1990)

................................................................................................................................ iii Chapter One Introduction .......................................................................................................1 Chapter Two Legal History of Capital Punishment from Furman (1972) to McKoy (1990)...................................................................................................................................6 Chapter Three Research on the Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States in the post-Gregg era...............................................................................................14 Research on the Issue of Arbitrariness: Aggravating Factors ..................................14 Research on the Issue of Arbitrariness: Both Aggravating and Mitigating Factors.................................................................................................................. 16 Chapter Four Method and Analytical Procedures.................................................................21 Data ...........................................................................................................................21 Statistical Analysis....................................................................................................27 Chapter Five Results .............................................................................................................29 Chapter Six Discussion.........................................................................................................37 References.............................................................................................................................44