Court communities in local context: a multilevel analysis of felony sentencing in South Carolina

Judicial Rotation as Centripetal Force: Sentencing in the Court Communities of South Carolina*

“…As noted, the aim of several recent studies has been to analyze sentencing practices in South Carolina with 2001 data collected by the now disbanded SC Sentencing Commission during the period it was developing and attempting to institute sentencing guidelines. 2 Hester and Sevigny (2014) reported offender-level findings that were in keeping with the general expectations published in the sentencing literature. For the decision of whether to imprison, the strongest predictors were offense seriousness, criminal history, offense type, and mode of disposition (plea or trial).…”

“…Moving up one of the five designated criminal history categories increased prison length by only 4 percent on average. In terms of racial disparities, Blacks received approximately 7 percent longer sentences than did Whites, controlling for the other predictors (Hester and Sevigny, 2014).…”

“…Judges spend much of their time in their home circuit; rotation occurs frequently but nonsystematically. In fiscal year 2001, the judges traveled to an average of 12 counties, and counties saw an average of 13 judges rotating through during the year for criminal court sessions (Hester and Sevigny, 2014).…”

“…By using qualitative interviews with trial judges from South Carolina, I examine ways that structural and cultural characteristics of a jurisdiction can reduce local differences-how factors can create a force toward greater uniformity rather than significant geographic variability. This inquiry is sparked by the results of recent quantitative studies of sentencing in South Carolina that have revealed less county-to-county variation in both the decision to incarcerate and the sentence-length decision than has been found in studies of other jurisdictions (Hester, 2012;Hester and Sevigny, 2014). The nature of county variation in South Carolina is noteworthy because the state never adopted sentencing guidelines and, thus, should reveal more diverse practices and outcomes than those uncovered in guidelines jurisdictions (which account for most research sites examined in the latest wave of court context research).…”

Tackling selection bias in sentencing data analysis: a new approach based on a scale of severity

“…Aggravating factors that will make the offence worth of custody will be commonly taken into account to define the length of the sentence. As a result, a number of sentencing scholars have explicitly discarded the Heckman model (Hester and Sevigny, 2014;Koons-Witt et al, 2014).…”