Tipping the scales
Identifying Judicial Empathy: Does Having Daughters Cause Judges to Rule for Women's Issues?
Adam Glynn & Maya Sen
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this article, we consider whether personal relationships can affect the way that judges decide cases. To do so, we leverage the natural experiment of a child's gender to identify the effect of having daughters on the votes of judges. Using new data on the family lives of U.S. Courts of Appeals judges, we find that, conditional on the number of children a judge has, judges with daughters consistently vote in a more feminist fashion on gender issues than judges who have only sons. This result survives a number of robustness tests and appears to be driven primarily by Republican judges. More broadly, this result demonstrates that personal experiences influence how judges make decisions, and this is the first article to show that empathy may indeed be a component in how judges decide cases.
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Indigent Defense Counsel, Attorney Quality, and Defendant Outcomes
Michael Roach
American Law and Economics Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
County governments typically provide legal defense services for the indigent through one of two methods: public defenders and assigned counsel. I measure differences in defendant outcomes between these two types of counsel, finding that assigned counsel generate significantly less favorable outcomes for defendants than public defenders. Since assigned counsel work involves attorneys selecting into it, outside labor market options could affect attorney selection decisions. With that in mind, I analyze how attorneys of different quality levels respond to exogenous changes in their respective outside options, finding a significant impact on the performance of assigned counsel relative to public defenders.
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Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death
Samuel Gross et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 20 May 2014, Pages 7230–7235
Abstract:
The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to death. This makes it possible to use data on death row exonerations to estimate the overall rate of false conviction among death sentences. The high rate of exoneration among death-sentenced defendants appears to be driven by the threat of execution, but most death-sentenced defendants are removed from death row and resentenced to life imprisonment, after which the likelihood of exoneration drops sharply. We use survival analysis to model this effect, and estimate that if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely, at least 4.1% would be exonerated. We conclude that this is a conservative estimate of the proportion of false conviction among death sentences in the United States.
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Wesley Jennings et al.
Journal of Criminal Justice, September–October 2014, Pages 384–398
Purpose: Death penalty research has rather consistently demonstrated a statistically significant relationship between defendant race and victim race in general, and for the Black defendant/White victim race dyad specifically. The bulk of this evidence has been derived from correlational studies and from cases over relatively condensed time frames.
Methods: The current study uses data from North Carolina (n = 1,113) over several decades (1977–2009) to evaluate the link between defendant/victim racial dyad and jury death penalty decision-making.
Results: Results suggest that there is an apparent “White victim effect” that can be observed in death penalty decision-making in traditional logistic regression models. Yet, once cases are matched via propensity score matching on approximately 50 case characteristics/confounders including the type of aggravators and mitigators accepted by the jury in addition to the number of aggravators and mitigators accepted, the relationship is rendered insignificant. Furthermore, these results hold for a defendant of any race killing a White victim and for the “most disadvantaged” situation for Black defendants (e.g., cases with White victims).
Conclusions: The “White victim effect” on capital punishment decision-making is better considered as a “case effect” rather than a “race effect.”
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Sarath Sanga
American Law and Economics Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do racial profiling tactics differ by officer race? The literature has relied on a test based on hit rates in vehicle searches to answer this question. This paper instead argues for a test based on patrol officers’ stop rates since it is less manipulable by officers, requires fewer assumptions, and includes all officer–citizen interactions. I compare these two methods of testing for discrimination using detailed data from Oakland, California. The hit rate test concludes that officer race does not matter on average or within neighborhoods. In contrast, the stop rate test concludes that officer race does matter within neighborhoods, and further suggests that the same officers discriminate in favor of their own race in some neighborhoods, yet against their own race in other neighborhoods. The contradictory nature of this discrimination suggests that it is more likely driven by information than animus.
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Michael Light
Law & Society Review, June 2014, Pages 447–478
Abstract:
In the wake of mass immigration from Latin America, legal scholars have shifted focus from racial to ethnic inequality under the law. A series of studies now suggest that Hispanics may be the most disadvantaged group in U.S. courts, yet this body of work has yet to fully engage the role of citizenship status. The present research examines the punishment consequences for non-U.S. citizens sentenced in federal courts between 1992 and 2009. Drawing from work in citizenship studies and sociolegal inequality, I hypothesize that nonstate members will be punished more severely than U.S. citizens, and any trends in Hispanic ethnicity over this period will be linked to punitive changes in the treatment of noncitizens. In line with this hypothesis, results indicate a considerable punishment gap between citizens and noncitizens — larger than minority-white disparities. Additionally, this citizenship “penalty” has increased at the incarceration stage, explaining the majority of the increase in Hispanic-white disparity over the past two decades. As international migration increases, these findings call for greater theoretical and empirical breadth in legal inequality research beyond traditional emphases, such as race and ethnicity.
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Strategic Judicial Preference Revelation
Álvaro Bustos & Tonja Jacobi
Journal of Law and Economics, February 2014, Pages 113-137
Abstract:
We examine the revelation of preferences of justices whose true ideologies are not known when entering the Court but gradually become apparent through their judicial decisions. In a 2-period president-Senate-Court game, we show that some new justices vote disingenuously and so move the perceived ideology of the overall Court closer to their ideally preferred outcome, which influences the selection of future justices. Justices will sometimes have an incentive to exaggerate the extremeness of their preferences and at other times will seek to appear more moderate. Systematic changes in judicial behavior can be predicted on the basis of the characteristics of the cases; the initial ideologies of the justices, the president, and the Senate; and the probabilities of retirement of the justices. These results have important implications for interpreting judicial voting behavior: particularly, it is not safe to infer changes in actual judicial preferences from changes in expression of judicial preferences.
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Narrow versus broad judicial decisions
Justin Fox & Georg Vanberg
Journal of Theoretical Politics, July 2014, Pages 355-383
Abstract:
A central debate among judges and legal scholars concerns the appropriate scope of judicial opinions: should decisions be narrow, and stick to the facts at hand, or should they be broad, and provide guidance in related contexts? A central argument for judicial ‘minimalism’ holds that judges should rule narrowly because they lack the knowledge required to make general rules to govern unknown future circumstances. In this paper, we challenge this argument. Our argument focuses on the fact that, by shaping the legal landscape, judicial decisions affect the policies that are adopted, and that may therefore subsequently be challenged before the court. Using a simple model, we demonstrate that in such a dynamic setting, in which current decisions shape future cases, judges with limited knowledge confront incentives to rule broadly precisely because they are ignorant.
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Overstating the Satisfaction of Lawyers
David Chambers
Law & Social Inquiry, Spring 2014, Pages 313–333
Abstract:
Recent literature commonly reports US lawyers as disheartened and discontented, but more than two dozen statistically based studies report that the great majority of lawyers put themselves on the satisfied side of scales of job satisfaction. The claim of this article is that, in three ways, these statistically based studies convey an overly rosy impression of lawyers' attitudes: first, that many of those who put themselves above midpoints on satisfaction scales are barely more positive than negative about their careers and often have profound ambivalence about their work; second, that surveys conducted at a single point in time necessarily fail to include the views of those who once worked in that setting but have now gone elsewhere; and third, that few studies address the problems of bias that may be caused by lower rates of response from the least satisfied persons in the population sampled.
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Testing Judicial Power: The Influence of the U.S. Supreme Court on Federal Incarceration
Matthew Hall
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The U.S. Supreme Court is traditionally thought to hold little influence over social or political change; however, recent evidence suggests the Court may wield significant power, especially with regard to criminal justice. Most studies evaluate judicial power by examining the effects of individual rulings on the implementation of specific policies, but this approach may overlook the broader impact of courts on society. Instead, I adopt an aggregate approach to test U.S. Supreme Court power. I find that aggregate conservative decision making by the Court is positively associated with long-term shifts in new admissions to U.S. federal prisons. These results suggest the Court possesses significant power to influence important social outcomes, at least in the context of the criminal justice system.
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Approval of social security disability appeals: Analysis of judges’ decisions
Robert Nakosteen & Michael Zimmer
Applied Economics, Summer 2014, Pages 2783-2791
Abstract:
This article is an empirical analysis of decisions by judges regarding requests by individuals for disability benefits. Applicants for disability benefits who are twice denied through the normal process can appeal to one of the Social Security Administration’s administrative law judges, who hold appointed positions. The data for this study are taken from decisions made by approximately 1000 judges for cases heard from 2010 through 2012. Using each judge as a unit of observation, the data reveal the number of cases heard and the number of approvals granted. We augmented the data with additional information on the presiding judge, and with data from the state in which the court resides. The purpose of the study is to determine whether a simple model can explain, first, the volume of decisions rendered at the judge level and, second, the proportion of approvals. Results indicate that the volume of decisions can be explained in part by the judge’s recent record of leniency. Evidence also supports the hypothesis that approval outcomes depend on judges’ professional tenure and economic factors in the state of jurisdiction.
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Evelyn Maeder, Susan Yamamoto & Paula Saliba
Psychology, Crime & Law, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has examined separately the influence of defendant race and victim physical attractiveness on juror decision-making in sexual assault trials. The current study sought to examine the combined effects of defendant race and victim physical attractiveness in a trial of alleged acquaintance sexual assault. Mock jurors read a trial transcript in which the defendant race and victim physical attractiveness were manipulated via photographs. Results demonstrated that women were not influenced by victim attractiveness, but that men were more certain of the defendant guilt when the victim was unattractive. Defendant race and victim attractiveness interacted with regards to victim responsibility ratings – when the defendant was White, attractive victims were rated as more responsible for the alleged assault than unattractive victims; this effect was reversed for trials with a Black defendant and nonexistent for trials with an Aboriginal Canadian defendant.
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Likable co-witnesses increase eyewitness accuracy and decrease suggestibility
Jenna Kieckhaefer & Daniel Wright
Memory, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the impact of likability on memory accuracy and memory conformity between two previously unacquainted individuals. After viewing a crime, eyewitnesses often talk to one another and may find each other likable or dislikable. One hundred twenty-seven undergraduate students arrived at the laboratory with an unknown confederate and were assigned to a likability condition (i.e., control, likable or dislikable). Together, the pair viewed pictures and was then tested on their memory for those pictures in such a way that the participant knew the confederate's response. Thus, the participant's response could be influenced both by his or her own memory and by the answers of the confederate. Participants in the likable condition were more accurate and less influenced by the confederate, compared with the other conditions. Results are discussed in relation to research that shows people are more influenced by friends than strangers and in relation to establishing positive rapport in forensic interviewing.
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Laurence Alison et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, October 2014, Pages 170–175
Abstract:
Principal component analysis of an operational field sample of 181 police interrogations with terrorist suspects identified five counter interrogation factors: passive (refusing to look at interviewers, remaining silent); passive verbal (monosyllabic response, claiming lack of memory); verbal (discussing an unrelated topic, providing well known information, providing a scripted response) with two single item components: retraction of previous statements and no comment. Analysis revealed significant differences in the use of counter interrogation tactics between terrorist groups, with paramilitary suspects using more passive, verbal and no comment tactics than right wing and international terrorists. International terrorists made significantly more use of retraction tactics than right wing and paramilitary groups.
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Malini Laxminarayan
Psychology, Crime & Law, Fall 2014, Pages 781-797
Abstract:
Psychological effects of criminal proceedings on victims have often been the focus of victimological research. The criminal justice system is repeatedly acknowledged as a source of additional harm for victims. Such a generalization, however, cannot be made to all legal systems universally to the same degree. This article compares the adversarial and inquisitorial structures of criminal justice and examines how the latter may in fact be beneficial to victim's well-being. More specifically, contact with the judge and presence at trial may be one positive form of victim participation in its most informal sense. Hierarchical regression analysis is conducted using victims of serious crimes in the Netherlands and New South Wales (NSW), Australia, to test this hypothesis. The type of legal system (i.e., inquisitorial versus adversarial) is used as a moderating variable on the relationship between contact with the judge and psychological effects. The findings indicate that victims in the Netherlands report a significant relationship, where contact with the judge is predictive of a less negative impact on psychological effects, while a non-significant relationship is found for victims in NSW.