Grosso, Baldus & Woodworth on the Domestic Discount

Catherine M. Grosso (Michigan State University - College of Law), David C. Baldus, (University of Iowa - College of Law), and George G. Woodworth, (University of Iowa - Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science) have posted Role of Intimacy in the Prosecution and Sentencing of Capital Murder Cases in the United States Armed Forces, 1984-2005 on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Scholars interested in the intersection between domestic violence and criminal law have posited that the existence of an intimate relationship between a defendant and a  victim may act as an automatic mitigator in the prosecution of violent felonies. This tendency to discount the severity of domestic homicide has been called the domestic discount. While a number of scholars have studied the influence of a domestic discount on other crimes, very little work has been done in capital prosecutions and sentencing.