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Article
Judicial Politics and Decisionmaking: A New Approach
Vanderbilt Law Review
  • Chris Guthrie
  • Andrew J. Wistrich, U.S. District Court, Central District, CA
  • Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Cornell Law School
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2017
Keywords
  • politics and judicial decisionmaking,
  • judges
Disciplines
Abstract

In twenty-five different experiments conducted on over 2,200 judges, we assessed whether judges' political ideology influences their resolution of hypothetical cases. Generally, we found that the political ideology of the judge matters, but only very little. Across a range of bankruptcy, criminal, and civil cases, we found that the aggregate effect of political ideology is either nonexistent or amounts to roughly onequarter of a standard deviation. Overall, the results of our experiments suggest that judges are not "politicians in robes."

Citation Information
Chris Guthrie, Andrew J. Wistrich and Jeffrey J. Rachlinski. "Judicial Politics and Decisionmaking: A New Approach" Vanderbilt Law Review Vol. 70 (2017) p. 2051 ISSN: 0042-2533
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/chris-guthrie/41/