Looks Can Kill

Study after study has shown that black defendants are more likely than white ones to receive the death penalty. But according to a paper published in psychological science in may(2006) not just whether you're black that matters in capital sentencing; it's also how black you look.
After gathering photos of defendants eligible for the death penalty,all convicted in Philadelphia between 1979 and 1999, Stanford University Psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt and her team asked students to rate how "Stereotypically Black" each person looked. The subjects knew only that they were seeing picture of black men,not criminals.The researchers than compared the"blackness"ratings with the convicts sentences.
Eberhardt found that 57.5 percent of defendants rated as stereotypically black.( with traits including darker skin and a broader nose ) had received the death penalty,compared with only 24.4 percent of those judged less stereotypically black.These percentages held only when the victim was white.Eberhardt speculates that black-on-white cases cause jurors to think about the crimes as conflict between races not individuals.As a result,races becomes an extra factor in their decision making.