<i>Black Robes, White Coats: The Puzzle of Judicial Policymaking and Scientific Evidence</i>. By Rebecca C. Harris. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008. Pp. 208. $65.00 cloth; $24.95 paper.

Hamilton, Melissa

doi:10.1111/j.1540-5893.2009.00393_5.x

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Regression models therefore control for judges' gender using a dichotomous variable retrieved from the Federal Judicial Center, which equals one for men and zero for women. There is also evidence that judicial behavior may reflect judges' political ideologies (Harris 2008;Segal and Spaeth 2002). The regression model therefore controls for judges' ideology using common space scores, which are based on the parties of judges' nominating president and confirming senators (Boyd 2015;Giles, Hettinger, and Peppers 2001;Epstein et al 2007).…”

Section: Control Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Table 3 also shows that experts' credentials and gender and judges' ideology and gender do not have statistically significant associations with judges' decisions, net of other differences. This is notable because each of these factors is associated with judicial behavior in other contexts, including decisions about expert evidence (Boyd et al 2010;Harris 2008;O'Brien 2016). Parties' resources are, however, associated with significant differences in judges' decisions, all else equal.…”

Section: Multinomial Logistic Regressionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Scientific Disciplines and the Admissibility of Expert Evidence in Courts

O’Brien,

Hawkins,

Loesch

2022

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

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The authors examine how people interpret expert claims when they do not share experts’ technical understanding. The authors review sociological research on the cultural boundaries of science and expertise, which suggests that scientific disciplines are heuristics nonspecialists use to evaluate experts’ credibility. To test this idea, the authors examine judicial decisions about contested expert evidence in U.S. district courts ( n = 575). Multinomial logistic regression results show that judges favor evidence from natural scientists compared with social scientists, even after adjusting for other differences among experts, judges, and court cases. Judges also favor evidence from medical and health experts compared with social scientists. These results help illustrate the assumptions held by judges about the credibility of some disciplines relative to others. They also suggest that judges may rely on tacit assumptions about the merits of different areas of science, which may reflect broadly shared cultural beliefs about expertise and credibility.

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