Justice League
Enumerating rights: More is not always better
Sheryl Ball, Chetan Dave & Stefan Dodds
Public Choice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Contemporary political and policy debate rhetoric increasingly employs the language of ‘rights’: how they are assigned and what entitlements individuals in a society are due. While the obvious constitution design issues surround how rights enumeration affects the relationship between a government and its citizens, we instead analyze how rights framing impacts how citizens interact with each other. We design and implement a novel experiment to test whether social cooperation depends on the enumeration and positive or negative framing of the right of subjects to take a particular action. We find that when rights are framed positively, there exists an ‘entitlement effect’ that reduces social cooperation levels and crowds-out the tendency of individuals to act pro-socially.
Can Racial Diversity among Judges Affect Sentencing Outcomes?
Allison Harris
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does racial diversity impact institutional outcomes and (in)equality? Discussions about diversity usually focus on how individuals’ identities shape their behavior, but diversity is a group-level characteristic. Scholars must, therefore, consider the relationship between group composition and the individual decisions that shape institutional outcomes. Using felony data from a large U.S. court system, I explore the relationship between racial diversity among the judges comprising a court and individual judges’ decisions. I find that as the percent of Black judges in a courthouse increases white judges are less likely to render incarceration sentences in cases with Black defendants. Increases in racial diversity decrease the Black–white gap in the probability of incarceration by up to 7 percentage points. However, I find no relationship between judge’s racial identities and disparities in their decisions. This study highlights the importance of conceptualizing diversity as a group characteristic and the relationship between institutional context and outcomes.
Does Cash Bail Deter Misconduct?
Aurélie Ouss & Megan Stevenson
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023, Pages 150-182
Abstract:
Courts routinely use low cash bail as a financial incentive to ensure released defendants appear in court and abstain from crime. This can create burdens for defendants with little empirical evidence on its efficacy. We exploit a prosecutor-driven reform that led to a sharp reduction in low cash bail and pretrial supervision, with no effect on pretrial detention, to test whether such incentive mechanisms succeed at their intended purpose. We find no evidence that financial collateral has a deterrent effect on failure to appear or pretrial crime. This paper also contributes to the literature on legal actor discretion, showing that nonbinding reforms may have limited impact on jail populations.
Noncitizen Justice: The Criminal Case Processing of Non-US Citizens in Texas and California
Michael Light, Jason Robey & Jungmyung Kim
American Journal of Sociology, July 2023, Pages 162–226
Abstract:
Immigration enforcement is increasingly dependent on local criminal justice authorities, yet basic questions on the criminal case processing of non-US citizens (documented or undocumented) in state and local jurisdictions remain unanswered. Leveraging uniquely rich case information on all felony arrests in California and Texas between 2006 and 2018, this article provides a detailed examination of the legal treatment of non-US citizens from booking through sentencing. In both states, the authors find that non-US citizens arrested for the same crime and with the same prior record are significantly more likely to be convicted and incarcerated than US citizens. These citizenship gaps often exceed the observed disparities between white and minority defendants, but the results were not identical in both states. In line with the more rigid views toward migrant criminality in Texas, the case processing of non-US citizens is notably more severe there than in California at nearly every key decision point. These findings suggest that even in local criminal justice settings, citizenship is a unique and consequential axis of contemporary legal inequality.
How Do Occupational Licensing Requirements Affect the Size of the U.S. Legal Profession?
Kyle Rozema
Northwestern University Working Paper, July 2023
Abstract:
I investigate the effect of occupational licensing requirements on the size of the U.S. legal profession. In particular, I develop a method to estimate the relative quantitative importance of individual licensing requirements. I report three primary findings. First, I find that the bar exam has a much larger impact on the size of the legal profession than the law degree requirement. Second, I find that differences between the most lenient and strictest bar exam policies would affect the size of the legal profession more than eliminating the bar exam. Finally, I find that small and often overlooked policies on the timing of licensing cumulatively have a non-trivial effect on the size of the legal profession.
Non-confrontational extremists
Daniel Chen, Moti Michaeli & Daniel Spiro
European Economic Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
In many contexts individuals are subject to norms and decisions they disagree with ideologically. What is the effect of regularly being in an ideological minority on the propensity to confront majority norms and decisions? We study this in an ideologically-salient field setting -- US appeals courts -- using exogenous predictors of ideology and random assignment of judges. We find that ideological interaction silences extremists: Judges who are ideologically extreme relative to their peers are less confrontational -- dissent less often -- than other judges, despite shaping case outcomes the least. Considering many mechanisms, we find that a model of peer pressure where agents perceive concave ideological costs can explain the observations.
Plugging the pipe? Evaluating the (null) effects of leaks on Supreme Court legitimacy
Nathan Carrington & Logan Strother
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Occasionally, information about the inner workings of the Supreme Court is leaked to the press by insiders -- clerks, or even justices themselves. These leaks reliably stoke controversy among commentators and academics alike who pontificate on the negative effect leaks have on the Court's institutional legitimacy. However, it is not immediately clear from existing theories whether populating the media environment with leaked information will affect public perceptions of the Court, let alone the direction of such effects. In this paper, we use an original survey combined with an original survey experiment to test the extent to which, if any, leaks influence legitimacy ascribed to the Supreme Court. Analysis shows a tightly-estimated null effect of leaks on public views on the Court.
The Impact of a Supreme Court Decision on the Preferences of Americans Regarding Abortion Policy
Raphael Thomadsen, Robert Zeithammer & Song Yao
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the effect of a U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding abortion laws on Americans’ preferences for political candidates. The decision was leaked in advance of the official announcement, and we track the evolution of political preferences from before to after the leak and, eventually, to after the formal announcement. The abortion issue was already very important to voters before the leak, but the Court’s decision did not simply make it more important for everyone. We find that the decision decreased the importance weight of abortion for Republicans, while increasing it for independents/nonvoters. Further, the decision increased Republican support for candidates who want to ban abortions although this effect is diminished for candidates that oppose exceptions for rape, incest, or the mother’s health. Nonaffiliated voters move sharply away from candidates who want to ban abortions without exceptions. The decision also resulted in a lasting polarization along gender lines whereby men became more likely to vote for a candidate that supports a ban on abortion, while women are less likely to support candidates that ban abortions.
The Political Ramifications of Judicial Institutions: Establishing a Link between Dobbs and Gender Disparities in the 2022 Midterms
Udi Sommer et al.
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, July 2023
Abstract:
In the American system of government, courts are designed to operate within the legal sphere, with limited political interference. Is it possible, though, that a behavior that is at the heart of the political process can be influenced directly by a judicial decision? Focusing on voter registration big data for the universe of voters in North Carolina around the time of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the authors assess the roles of gender, political party affiliation, and age in voter registration. North Carolina is the only state whose voter registry has the necessary granularity over time and information needed. Women and Democrats were more likely to register to vote after information about the ruling was released, suggesting that Dobbs influenced their behavior. This effect on voter registration gender gap was unique to June 2022, unlike previous midterm election years (2014 and 2018). Interrupted time-series analyses lend further support to these findings.
Time and Punishment: Time Delays Exacerbate the Severity of Third-Party Punishment
Timothy Kundro et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Punishments are not always administered immediately after a crime is committed. Although scholars and researchers claim that third parties should normatively enact punishments proportionate to a given crime, we contend that third parties punish transgressors more severely when there is a time delay between a transgressor’s crime and when they face punishment for it. We theorize that this occurs because of a perception of unfairness, whereby third parties view the process that led to time delays as unfair. We tested our theory across eight studies, including two archival data sets of 160,772 punishment decisions and six experiments (five preregistered) across 6,029 adult participants. Our results suggest that as time delays lengthen, third parties punish transgressors more severely because of increased perceived unfairness. Importantly, perceived unfairness explained this relationship beyond other alternative mechanisms. We explore potential boundary conditions for this relationship and discuss the implications of our findings.
Improving Recidivism Forecasting With a Relaxed Naïve Bayes Classifier
YongJei Lee, SooHyun O & John Eck
Crime & Delinquency, forthcoming
Abstract:
Correctional authorities require accurate, unbiased, and interpretable tools to predict individuals’ chances of recidivating if released into the community. However, existing prediction models have serious limitations meeting these requirements. We overcome these limitations by applying an established medical diagnostic approach: a relaxed naïve Bayes classifier. Using logistic regression in the form of a naïve Bayes classifier, we estimate the weights of observed features of offenders on recidivism. We apply these weights in a relaxed naïve Bayes classifier to predict the probability of recidivism. Results show that acquired features are stronger predictors of recidivism than innate features. Relaxed naïve Bayes classifier produces far less racial disparity than most alternatives. Critically, it is easier for users to interpret than its alternatives.