Judges’ politics, gender, and family shape their rulings empirically

Evidence

Using this framework, Cohen and Yang (2019) find that political affiliation of judges has an impact on their decisions. The authors find that Republican-appointed federal judges are harsher against Black defendants and are more lenient toward female defendants in comparison to judges appointed by Democrats. Similarly, analyzing data from the U.S. Courts of Appeals, Sunstein and colleagues (2006) showed that judges who were Democratic appointees voted—in political elections—in a more liberal fashion in comparison to judges who were appointed by Republicans. Glynn and Sen (2015) found that appellate court judges who have daughters consistently voted in a feminist direction. Knepper (2018) found that female plaintiffs who filed sex discrimination cases with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission were more likely to win their cases in federal district courts if a female judge was assigned to the case. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 750

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

Related

• Judges’ race, gender, and politics measurably shift their case outcomes (similarity 0.96)
• Observed sentencing disparities do not necessarily prove judge discrimination (similarity 0.80)
• Evidence that selection mode shapes judicial decisions is mixed and inconclusive (similarity 0.80)
• Case outcomes depend on demographics that a blind justice ideal says must not matter (similarity 0.80)