Observed sentencing disparities do not necessarily prove judge discrimination

Evidence

Although “Equal Justice under Law” is etched on the façade of the U.S. Supreme Courthouse, and justice is expected to be blind, it has been shown that judicial decisions are correlated with such personal attributes as defendants’ race and gender. Because judicial decisions are made by judges in most cases (e.g., in bench trials in federal and districts courts or by a panel of judges in appellate courts) the focus has been on the verdicts handed down by judges. While lay observers attribute the race and gender disparities in judges’ decisions to discrimination, these differences do not necessarily indicate disparate treatment. This is because a number of defendants’ attributes may be correlated with race and gender, and these attributes may directly or indirectly impact case outcomes. Examples of these attributes include observable factors such as socioeconomic circumstances, as well as difficult-to-observe characteristics such as criminal proclivity. Thus, detailed characteristics of the defendants and those of their case files need to be accounted for in order to tease out their impact on judicial decisions. Only then is it possible to statistically estimate the true impact of race and gender on judicial outcomes. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 773

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the omitted-variable-bias literature and to similar confound arguments in policing and hiring discrimination research. — connects to: Crack cocaine sentencing disparity is racially discriminatory in practice — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1231; Judge attractiveness bias measurably reduces real-world fines and bail amounts — Anthony G. Greenwald and Mahzarin R. Banaji, Implicit Social Cognition: Attitudes,…, 92