I think this study is orthogonal to whether or not the death penalty is a good thing. There are a lot of things that are self-reinforcing. Take for examples,

I think this study is orthogonal to whether or not the death penalty is a good thing. There are a lot of things that are self-reinforcing. Take for examples, unions. Whether or not you think unions are a good thing or bad thing, likely you will be more successful unionizing a company that is located where there already are a lot of unions. For example, one of the big disadvantages of the Alabama Amazon union organizers was that they were in a part of the country where there was a strong anti-union sentiment in general. To get to something more related to law enforcement, likely certain areas of the country will have more success in convicting police officers of murders. For example, the Chauvin trial, instead of being held in Hennepin County, was held in a small rural county in norther Minnesota would most probably been harder to convince the jury to convict on all three counts and probably would have had a higher chance of a hung jury(which is why the defense asked to moved the venue). Yes different parts of the country, and even the state will have likely different outcomes. This will be true for a lot of things. This observation is orthogonal to whether what you want is right or wrong. After all, no one would argue that Chauvin’s conviction should be thrown out since a different jury in a different part of the country might have reached a different conclusion?