Judge-defendant race matching produces measurable in-group sentencing bias.

Evidence

In Equation (3), γ3 captures the difference in outcomes between White defendant-minority judge pairs and White defendant-White judge pairs, and γ3 + δ3 is the differential impact on outcomes on minority defendants by minority versus White judges. Thus, δ3 in Equation (3) signifies the differential decisions of minority judges versus White judges in their treatment of minority defendants over White defendants. Put plainly, if δ3 is different from zero, this is evidence for in-group bias. For example, if Y stands for sentence length and if δ3 is negative, this indicates that judges assign lower sentences to those defendants who are in their “in-group”; for example, those who are of the same race. Thus, the formulation in Equation (3) allows for an investigation of whether the race of judges makes a difference in how they treat defendants who share the same race. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 761

Assume that estimating Equation (3) also revealed that β3 is 2. This means that White judges assign two months longer sentences to minority defendants vis-à-vis White defendants. Put differently, White judges exhibit positive in-group bias by assigning White defendants two months shorter sentences vis-à-vis minority defendants. Note that, in this situation, (β3 + δ3), which signifies how minority defendants are treated vis-à-vis White defendants by minority judges, is equal to -4. In turn, this means that minority defendants receive sentences that are four months shorter when they are matched with a minority judge in comparison to the situation where whey would be matched with a White judge. In summary, both White and minority judges favor their in-group by assigning shorter sentences. … The intuition is straightforward. A researcher who has access to a complete data set with all relevant variables that are needed to investigate racial bias can run Equation (1), and he/she may estimate the coefficient of Minority Defendant as being equal to zero, indicating no racial bias in sentencing. This inference, although correct at the aggregate, could mask more nuanced and layered discriminatory behavior. Specifically, this “no evidence for discrimination” would be an artifact of how White judges discriminate against minorities and minority judges discriminate against Whites, and the magnitudes of these effects and the proportions of White and minority judges in the data are such that they could cancel out at the aggregate. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 769

In her 2019 book, Eberhardt tells a story in which her son, who is African American, observed a Black man boarding an airplane and opined that the man might be dangerous or a criminal. Depew and colleagues (2017) provided the first empirical evidence of negative in-group bias in a randomized design outside the laboratory. They reviewed Louisiana juvenile court cases from 1996 through 2012 and found that, all else held equal, Black (vs. White) juveniles who were randomly assigned to Black (vs. White) judges received longer sentences and were more likely to be incarcerated rather than given probation. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 1169

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the econometric definition of in-group bias (δ3) as differential treatment by judges of same-race defendants, which operationalizes the trial-identification concept in a measurable way.
• XREF: Directly serves the reader’s question about whether professed neutrality diverges from measured bias; also parallels the radar-silence construction in political-psychology work on manufactured enemies. — connects to: Judge attractiveness bias measurably reduces real-world fines and bail amounts — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 92
• QUESTION: Does this mutual-cancellation problem generalize to implicit-bias measurement settings in policing and prosecution?
• DEEPTHINKING: Directly bears on the reader’s core question: measured bias diverges sharply from what a professed egalitarian or group-loyal identity would predict — a Black judge punishing Black juveniles harder than White judges do resists any simple enemy-construction or solidarity story.
• corroborated: 6 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 761; Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 769; Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 1169