ASSESSING THE CAPRICIOUSNESS OF DEATH-PENALTY CHARGING

We discuss capriciousness in decisions to charge homicide defendants w ith capital crimes. We propose using Shannon information to assess cap riciousness in a charging system and apply Shannon Information to anal yze new data from San Francisco County, California. We show that about two-thirds of the potential systemic capriciousness is removed by the explanatory variables available. The one-third remaining is dependent on inherently unstable features of charging practices that necessaril y produce capriciousness.