Judging the Judiciary by the Numbers: Empirical Research on Judges
By J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich. 2017
104 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Do judges make decisions that are truly impartial? A wide range of experimental and field studies reveal that several extralegal factors influence judicial decision making. Demographic characteristics of judges and litigants affect judges' decisions. Judges also rely heavily on intuitive reasoning in deciding cases, making them vulnerable to the use of mental shortcuts that can lead to mistakes. Furthermore, judges sometimes rely on facts outside the record and rule more favorably toward litigants who are more sympathetic or with whom they share demographic characteristics. On the whole, judges are excellent decision makers and sometimes resist common errors of judgment that influence ordinary adults. The weight of the evidence, however, suggests that judges are vulnerable to systematic deviations from the ideal of judicial impartiality.
Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Law
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b9cac553779efd844eae196fe4da7bfadae337a1
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In Economics and Econometrics
Citations in the corpus
- The Society of Algorithms (2021, background): “…literature,some of it popularized by the trade press and mainstream media, showing that even professionals at the highest levels of prestige prove fallible on tests of objectivity or optimal decision-making (i.e., Ariely 2010, Kahneman 2013, Rachlinski & Wistrich 2017, Watts 2011, Volokh 2019).”