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We study 1,410 mandatory jurisdiction and 48 discretionary jurisdiction criminal law case outcomes in cases appealed to the Israel Supreme Court in 2006 and 2007 to assess influences on case outcomes. A methodological innovation is accounting for factors—case specialization, seniority, and workload—that modify random case assignment. To the extent one accounts for nonrandom assignment, one can infer that case outcome differences are judge effects. In mandatory jurisdiction cases, individual justices cast 3,986 votes and differed by as much as 15 percent in the probability of casting a vote favoring defendants. Female justices were about 2 to 3 percent more likely than male justices to vote for defendants but this effect is sensitive to including one justice. Defendant gender was associated with outcome, with female defendants about 17 percent more likely than male defendants to receive a favorable vote on appeal. Our data's samples of mandatory and discretionary jurisdiction cases allow us to show that studies limited to discretionary jurisdiction case outcomes can distort perceptions of judges' preferences. Justices' ordinal rank in rate of voting for defendants or the state was uncorrelated across mandatory and discretionary jurisdiction cases. For example, the justice who sat on the most criminal cases was the fourth (of 16 justices) most favorable to the state in mandatory jurisdiction cases but the 12th most favorable in discretionary jurisdiction cases. This result casts doubt on some inferences based on studies of judges on discretionary jurisdiction courts, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, in which only discretionary case outcomes are observed.

This Essay reports the results of an empirical study of the Israel Supreme Court (ISC). It covers the outcomes of

Appellate adjudication frequently involves small group decision making. Role responsibility theory and experimental evidence suggest that high status group members may disproportionately influence other members. A judicial panel's presiding justice and the justice who writes a case's opinion thus may influence other justices' votes. We compare justices' voting patterns in cases in which they presided and wrote opinions with their voting patterns when they did not preside or write opinions. The data consist of 1,410 mandatory jurisdiction criminal law cases decided by the Israel Supreme Court in 2006 and 2007. Voting patterns varied significantly with presiding and nonpresiding status. On average justices were 4.5% more likely to vote in their preferred direction when presiding than as mere panel members, which corresponds to an increase of about 28% given a baseline rate of voting for defendants of 16%. Justices' colleagues' voting patterns significantly changed when particular justices did and did not preside. Colleagues were 50% more likely to vote for defendants when one justice did not preside compared with when he did. Some justices' voting patterns varied based on opinion-writing status. This is likely due to the nonrandom process of opinion assignment.

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