Racial sentencing disparities can arise from case sorting even with unbiased judges

Evidence

One complication in these analyses is the potential of systematic “sorting” of defendants to judges. For example, assume that there are two types of judges in the same courthouse: Type-L and Type-H. Type-L judges are lenient—they convict defendants at lower rates and assign shorter prison terms. Type-H judges are harsh by nature—they convict defendants at higher rates and assign longer sentences. Now assume that most minority defendants are channeled to judges of Type-H, and that most White defendants are put in front of Type-L judges. Even if judges were not racially biased, the end result of this sorting would be that minority defendants would end up with higher conviction probabilities and longer sentences in comparison to White defendants. One obvious method to overcome the confounding that is generated by this type of sorting is to employ data from jurisdictions that use random assignment of cases to judges. — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 737

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s research problem: institutional sorting (a structural mechanism) mimicking what could be misread as individual bias — the same inference trap as implicit-vs-explicit bias measurement gaps.
• DEFINE: Clarifies ‘sorting’ as a methodological confound in disparity research — a channeling mechanism that simulates bias in aggregate outcomes.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law: A Definitive Look at…, 737