Judges on Trial: A Reexamination of Judicial Race and Gender Effects Across Modes of Conviction

Abstract

Extant research on the effects of judicial background characteristics suggests minimal influence from the race or gender of the sentencing judge in criminal cases. This raises at least two possibilities: 1) the combined influence of judicial recruitment, indoctrination and socialization into the judgeship results in a homogenous body of criminal court judges, or 2) current approaches to identifying judge effects in criminal sentencing have methodological and conceptual flaws that limit their ability to detect important influences from judicial background characteristics. The current paper argues that the mode of conviction shapes the locus of sentencing discretion in ways that systematically underestimate judge effects for pooled estimates of incarceration and sentence length. The empirical results support this interpretation, especially for incarceration in trial cases, where older, female, and minority judges are substantially less likely to sentence offenders to jail or prison terms.

Keywords: judge, sentencing, disparity, trial, race

JEL Classification: K00