Doctoral Dissertation Research: Three Essays on Judicial Decision-Making

本研究考察了选举刑事审判法官对他们在量刑过程中保护少数群体权利的能力的影响。该研究利用了堪萨斯的行政数据，其中包括1998年至2010年被定罪的重罪犯的宇宙。堪萨斯是仅有的三个同时使用选举（14个区）和任命（17个区）来选择法官的州之一。这种变化将使PI能够区分司法任命模式，控制各州的具体因素。这项研究还调查了司法偏见随着时间的推移可以学习或不学习的程度。有了更多的专业经验，法官通过与黑人和白色辩护人的反复互动了解到真正的种族特定累犯率后，似乎可以更新他们先前的信念。“边做边学”模式适用于当前关于量刑指南优点的政策辩论。自20世纪80年代以来，联邦政府和许多州都颁布了量刑指南，以便在量刑过程中提供更多的结构，从理论上讲，通过限制司法自由裁量权来限制种族量刑差异。在实践中，关于其有效性的证据好坏参半，这引起了人们的关切，即阻止法官利用其专门知识是没有道理的。如果法官在职业生涯的早期而不是后期确实参与了更多基于种族的判决，那么这将表明将指导方针与任期挂钩可能是这一政策更有效的实施方式。

This research examines the impact of electing criminal trial judges on their ability to protect minority rights in the sentencing process. The study utilizes administrative data from Kansas that includes the universe of convicted felons from 1998 to 2010. Kansas is one of only three states that uses both elections (in 14 districts) and appointment (in 17 districts) to choose judges. This variation will allow the PIs to distinguish between judicial appointment modes, controlling for state-specific factors. This research also investigates the extent to which judicial prejudice can be learned or unlearned over time. With more professional experience, it seems plausible that judges could update their prior beliefs as they learn about true race-specific recidivism rates through repeated interactions with both black and white defenders.A "learning-by-doing" model speaks to the concurrent policy debate over the merits of sentencing guidelines. Since the 1980's, the federal government and numerous states have enacted sentencing guidelines in order to provide more structure in the sentencing process, which in theory, limits racial sentencing disparities by constraining judicial discretion. In practice, there has been mixed evidence on their effectiveness, which raises concerns that preventing judges from utilizing their expertise is unwarranted. If judges do engage in more race-based sentencing earlier rather than later in their careers, then this would suggest tying the guidelines to tenure might be a more effective implementation of this policy.