Whose process
It’s Still about Race: Peremptory Challenge Use on Black Prospective Jurors
Whitney DeCamp & Elise DeCamp
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, forthcoming
Method: Using data from 2,542 venire members in Mississippi, propensity score matching is used to examine racial differences in jury selection by comparing Black venire members to similarly situated White venire member counterparts.
Results: Findings suggest that Black venire members are 4.51 times as likely to be excluded from a jury due to peremptory challenges from the prosecution in comparison to White venire members. Conversely, White venire members are 4.21 times as likely to be excluded through peremptory challenges by the defense in comparison to Black venire members.
Trading Liberties for Security: Groupthink, Gender, and 9/11 Effects on U.S. Appellate Decision-Making
Rebecca Reid, Susanne Schorpp & Susan Johnson
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does groupthink affect court deference to the government in times of heightened security concerns? We argue that male judges serving in homogeneous panels in federal appellate courts modified their behavior post-9/11, but that the presence of a female on the panel mitigated these effects. Using data on the U.S. Court of Appeals from 1978 to 2008 in search-and-seizure cases, we argue that women can safeguard against groupthink effects that otherwise trend toward a more deferential, less rights-oriented approach in times of heightened security. Our findings suggest women mitigate their male colleagues’ shift toward more deferential decisions by affecting panel outcomes that are more consistent with peacetime decisions. These results suggest the important role women exert in collegial panels beyond direct voting patterns. In times of heightened security concerns, panel diversity can avoid groupthink that might stand in the judiciary’s way of providing an effective check on executive and legislative power.
How Do Criminal Courts Respond in Times of Crisis? Evidence from 9/11
Michael Light, Michael Massoglia & Ellen Dinsmore
American Journal of Sociology, September 2019, Pages 485-533
Abstract:
How courts make decisions during national emergencies has been a key focus of legal scholarship, yet we know comparatively little about how courts respond to national crises in one of their core functions — criminal sentencing. This article addresses this gap by leveraging the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to examine the punishment of foreign nationals before and after a national emergency. Using difference-in-difference-in-differences estimation, this article finds little evidence that the severity of sentences for non-U.S. citizens changed appreciably nationwide. This article does find, however, considerable evidence of a more local 9/11 effect, whereby the sentencing gap between citizens and noncitizens widened significantly in the New York and Washington, D.C., District Courts following the attacks. Using restricted data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, this article finds suggestive evidence that the differences in sentencing following 9/11 are likely attributable to changes in judges’ behavior, rather than policy shifts or changes in prosecutorial decisions.
Lawyers’ Role-Induced Bias Arises Fast and Persists Despite Intervention
Holger Spamann
Harvard Working Paper, May 2019
Abstract:
Law students randomly assigned to represent one side in a legal argument in the classroom exhibit substantial role-induced prediction bias for their side within only 40 minutes of their role assignment. Reminding students that prediction requires a more neutral perspective than advocacy does not attenuate the bias. The bias occurs evenly in male and female participants, who also report equal confidence in their predictions.
Variations in reliability and validity do not influence judge, attorney, and mock juror decisions about psychological expert evidence
Jacqueline Austin Chorn & Margaret Bull Kovera
Law and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Method: In Experiment 1, judges (N = 111) and attorneys (N = 95) read a summary of case facts and proffer of expert testimony on the intelligence of a litigant. The psychological testing varied in scientific quality; either there was (a) blind administration (i.e., the psychologist did not have an expectation for the test result) of a highly reliable test, (b) nonblind administration (i.e., the psychologist did have an expectation for the test result) of a highly reliable test, or (c) blind administration of a test with low reliability. In a trial simulation (Experiment 2), we varied the scientific quality of the intelligence test and whether the cross-examination addressed the scientific quality of the test.
Results: The variations in scientific quality did not influence judges’ admissibility decisions nor their ratings of scientific quality nor did it influence attorneys’ decisions about whether to move to exclude the evidence. Attorneys’ ratings of scientific quality were sensitive to variations in reliability but not the testing conditions. Scientifically informed cross-examinations did not help mock jurors (N = 192) evaluate the validity or the reliability of a psychological test.
Law Matters — Less Than We Thought
Daniel Klerman & Holger Spamann
University of Southern California Working Paper, August 2019
Abstract:
In a pre-registered 2×2×2 factorial between-subject randomized lab experiment with 61 federal judges, we test if the law influences judicial decisions, if it does so more under a rule than under a standard, and how its influence compares to that of legally irrelevant sympathies. The judges were given realistic materials and a relatively long period of time (50 minutes) to decide a run-of-the-mill auto accident case. We find weak evidence for the law effect, stronger evidence that rules constrain more than standards, and no evidence of a sympathy effect. Unexpectedly, we find that judges were more likely to choose the law that fully compensates an injured plaintiff.
More Than Skin Deep? The Effect of Visible Tattoos on the Perceived Characteristics of a Rape Victim
Nesa Wasarhaley & Rebecca Vilk
Women & Criminal Justice, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present experiment examined whether negative tattoo stereotypes would cause negative judgments about a rape victim. Mock jurors (N = 174) read an acquaintance rape trial summary online and viewed a photo depicting the alleged victim with a feminine (flower), neutral (script), or no tattoo. They rendered verdicts and rated the victim on various attributes (e.g., credibility). Overall, participant gender was the strongest predictor of trial judgments and ratings of victim attributes. Additionally, participants blamed a victim with a flower tattoo less (vs. script), which increased guilty verdicts in this condition. Results are discussed with regard to the effect of extra-legal factors on rape judgments.
When Friends Become Foes: Collaboration as a Catalyst for Conflict
Jose Uribe, Maxim Sytch & Yong Kim
Administrative Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Social embeddedness research has suggested that a history of collaboration between rivals should facilitate cooperation and prevent conflict. In contrast, the present study explores how a history of collaboration between people who subsequently become rivals can exacerbate conflict rather than facilitate future collaboration when salient others may expect them to be antagonistic. We develop this argument for a general set of relationships in which agents who previously collaborated become rivals while representing contesting principals. These agents may be perceived by the principals they represent as having compromised loyalties. This is especially likely when the principals whom the agents represent compete intensely or have previously been in conflict. To mitigate principals’ loyalty concerns, agents engage in compensatory behaviors meant to demonstrate social and psychological distance from former collaborators and now-rivals. Paradoxically, these behaviors transform a history of collaboration into a catalyst for conflict. Our empirical analyses are based on the professional histories of more than 20,000 external legal counsel representing corporate clients in intellectual property lawsuits filed from 2000 to 2015. Results reveal that lawyers engage in uncooperative behaviors in court to distance themselves from opposing lawyers who are former collaborators. These dynamics are associated with longer, more contentious litigation and lost economic value for clients, as evidenced by an analysis of companies’ abnormal stock market returns upon the termination of a lawsuit. Our research thus sheds lights on a mechanism by which past collaboration can undermine future collaboration and carries potential implications for research on social structures and for work on the interplay of structure and evaluative dynamics.
Ideological Competition and Conflict in the Judicial Hierarchy
Joshua Strayhorn
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Circuit splits, or conflicting rules across multiple U.S. Courts of Appeals, have important policy implications and dramatic effects on Supreme Court case selection, yet we know little about the incentives ideological lower courts face when deciding whether to initiate conflict. This article develops a formal model of a judicial hierarchy where lower court judges are subject to review by a high court with distaste for unresolved conflict, termed “split‐intolerance,” and with uncertain preferences over policy. Lower courts may compete by investing costly effort in legal quality to make their rules more attractive. In equilibrium, lower courts may initiate conflict even when the odds of success before the high court are remote. Surprisingly, lower courts grow more likely to create conflict as the high court's split‐intolerance increases; however, split‐intolerance can also incentivize greater lower court effort. I present qualitative evidence illustrating the model's explanatory power.
How Does Hyperpoliticized Rhetoric Affect the US Supreme Court’s Legitimacy?
Michael Nelson & James Gibson
Journal of Politics, October 2019, Pages 1512-1516
Abstract:
Many believe that President Trump’s criticisms of the judiciary pose real and immediate threats to judicial legitimacy. However, framing theory suggests that source credibility is a prerequisite for such frames to be effective. Relying on an experiment embedded in a multiwave, nationally representative sample of Americans, we examine whether public attacks on the judiciary — by either Trump or distinguished law professors — affect the US Supreme Court’s legitimacy. We demonstrate that criticisms of the Court from either source are only deleterious among respondents who believe the source is credible; source credibility also shapes agreement with the criticism. Because President Trump is viewed with distrust by a majority of Americans, his comments pose only a limited threat to the Court’s legitimacy. However, our data also suggest that a more credible source (inside or outside government), using similar attacks, could do considerable damage to the legitimacy of the American government’s most fragile branch.
The Devil Is in the Details: Attorney Effects on Employment Arbitration Outcomes
Ryan Lamare
ILR Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Conventional wisdom holds that hiring an attorney will improve outcomes for non-union employees who take individual rights complaints to arbitration. The limited empirical scholarship on this topic, however, rarely accounts for the concurrent influence of employer representatives or for differences in attorney characteristics. The author analyzes all arbitration awards rendered within the securities industry for cases filed at the implementation of its ADR program through 2007. Findings show that hiring an attorney benefits employees, but only in the rare instances when employers do not include an agent. In addition, the author examines lawyers’ biographical records to determine attorney quality differences and their effects on outcomes conditional on both sides having legal counsel. Findings show that employee and employer attorney characteristics differ and have grown more pronounced over time. These differences can affect awards, particularly to the benefit of employees. The author concludes that although simply hiring any attorney will not redress systematic imbalances within employment arbitration, lawyers are important to the system and certain types of representatives can affect the outcomes of arbitration.
Presidential action and the Supreme Court: The case of signing statements
Sharece Thrower
Journal of Theoretical Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent attention to presidential action recognizes the legal and constitutional questions surrounding the controversial use of many of these powers. Yet, scholarly research on executive policymaking tends to ignore the role of the courts, instead focusing on presidential–congressional relations. I develop a formal theory of the president’s decision to issue a signing statement in the face of constraints from the Supreme Court. The model produces several novel predictions. First, I predict that the president is more likely to issue a signing statement when he is ideologically aligned with the Court. Second, contrary to previous literature, the president is more likely to issue a statement when his preferences are also aligned with Congress. Finally, when reviewing legislation that is constitutionally challenged, I predict that the Court is more likely to rule in favor of the president’s position when he has issued a signing statement.