Do Standards of Review Matter? The Case of Federal Criminal Sentencing

Fischman, Joshua B.; Schanzenbach, Max M.

doi:10.1086/659262

Cited by 29 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…A significant change, such as when the Supreme Court declared the Guidelines to be advisory in Booker , could lead prosecutors to offer more substantial assistance departures and hence substantial assistance departures may be endogenous to the legal change. In an earlier article, we found no evidence that the substantial assistance departure rate responds to changes in doctrine (Fischman & Schanzenbach ).…”

contrasting

confidence: 75%

“…LaCasse and Payne () found empirical evidence that judges exerted a strong influence over the substance of a plea agreement, and that this influence persisted post‐Guidelines. Likewise, Fischman and Schanzenbach () and Schanzenbach and Tiller () found that judicial characteristics affect the calculation of the offense level, the probability of a departure, and the overall prison sentence.…”

Section: The Guidelines Mandatory Minimums and Standards Of Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…); however, the authors caution that this decrease may have been partly attributable to the introduction of new mandatory minimum penalties. Fischman and Schanzenbach () found that interjudge disparity under the Guidelines depended on the standard of appellate review for sentencing departures: differences between Democratic and Republican appointees were significantly larger under deferential review than under de novo review. Scott's () study of a single district found that interjudge disparities increased after the Guidelines were declared advisory in Booker .…”

Section: The Guidelines Mandatory Minimums and Standards Of Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Racial Disparities Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: The Role of Judicial Discretion and Mandatory Minimums

Fischman¹,

Schanzenbach²

2012

J Empirical Legal Studies

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The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines restrict judicial discretion in part to reduce unwarranted racial disparities. However, judicial discretion may also mitigate disparities if judges use discretion to offset disparities emanating from prosecutorial discretion or sentencing policies that have a disparate impact. To measure the impact of judicial discretion on racial disparities, we examine doctrinal changes that affected judges' discretion to depart from the Guidelines. We find that racial disparities are either reduced or little changed when the Guidelines are made less binding. Racial disparities increased after recent Supreme Court decisions declared the Guidelines to be advisory; however, we find that this increase is due primarily to the increased relevance of mandatory minimums, which have a disparate impact on minority offenders. Our findings suggest that judicial discretion does not contribute to, and may in fact mitigate, racial disparities in Guidelines sentencing.

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contrasting

confidence: 75%

Section: The Guidelines Mandatory Minimums and Standards Of Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Guidelines Mandatory Minimums and Standards Of Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Racial Disparities Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: The Role of Judicial Discretion and Mandatory Minimums

Fischman¹,

Schanzenbach²

2012

J Empirical Legal Studies

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“…In the literature on positive political theory, judges are modelled as strategic policy maximisers who seek to maximise their preferences, subject to constraints imposed by other factors, such as adherence to legal doctrine (Schanzenbach and Tiller, ; Shavell, ; Cross et al ., ). Such an approach has been used to model the sentencing preferences of US judges under Federal Sentencing Guidelines (Schanzenbach and Tiller, ; Fischman and Schanzenbach, ). Our conceptual framework draws on these studies, although there are important differences, given that these studies model sentencing preferences of judges in a democratic common law country (the United States) sitting in Federal District courts and subject to appeal to higher courts in the judicial hierarchy.…”

Section: Positive Political Theory Of Criminal Sentencingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hitler’s Judges: Ideological Commitment and the Death Penalty in Nazi Germany

Geerling

Magee

Mishra

et al. 2017

The Economic Journal

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We examine the role of judicial policy preferences in influencing whether judges in Nazi Germany sentenced defendants charged with serious political offences to death. We find that judicial policy preferences, measured by the depth of the ideological commitment of the judge to the Nazi Party worldview, were an important determinant of whether judges imposed the death sentence. Judges more committed to the Nazi Party were more likely to impose the death sentence on defendants belonging to organised political opposition groups, those accused of violent resistance and those with characteristics to which Nazism was intolerant.

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“…Evidence indicates that review standards can impact circuit court decision making (Anderson, 2012;Cross, 2003), and notably the estimated coefficient for Republican-majority panels is not statistically distinguishable from zero when a deferential standard of review is applied (cf. Fischman & Schanzenbach, 2011). It is important to emphasize, however, that there are relatively few cases in this sample decided under a deferential standard.…”

mentioning

confidence: 87%

Constitutional accountability for police shootings

Goelzhauser

2023

J Empirical Legal Studies

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Constitutional accountability for police shootings is imposed in part through civil rights lawsuits alleging Fourth Amendment violations, but little is known about how judges evaluate these claims. I introduce original data on all federal circuit court decisions resolving Fourth Amendment excessive force claims in police shooting cases over three decades. The quasi‐random assignment of a majority‐Republican panel substantially increases the probability of circuit courts finding a police shooting to be constitutional. Capturing law's influence by mapping case facts to the three‐part analytical framework delineated by the Supreme Court in Graham v. Connor, I find that active resistance and threat immediacy are associated with increases in the probability of finding police shootings to be constitutional, but crime severity is not systematically associated with outcomes. In addition, there is evidence that law conditions the effect of politics, with increases in latent Fourth Amendment reasonableness narrowing the partisan outcome gap in constitutional assessments. The quasi‐random assignment of a Black judge does not impact outcomes. The results have important implications for police oversight and longstanding debates in judicial politics over the prevalence of panel effects and the extent to which law influences decision making.

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Do Standards of Review Matter? The Case of Federal Criminal Sentencing

Cited by 29 publications

References 40 publications

Racial Disparities Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: The Role of Judicial Discretion and Mandatory Minimums

Racial Disparities Under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: The Role of Judicial Discretion and Mandatory Minimums

Hitler’s Judges: Ideological Commitment and the Death Penalty in Nazi Germany

Constitutional accountability for police shootings

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