Abstract

This project builds on existing work in social science to better understand the effects of judicial selection mechanisms on the voting behavior of judges in the states’ highest courts. Specifically, this paper answers the following question: Does the judicial selection mechanism in state supreme courts affect the punitiveness of the judges in criminal matters? This work posits that the variance in electoral pressure experienced by judges across selection methods results in a separate set of incentive structures for judges in elective systems compared to those of judges in appointment systems. Judges in elective systems should vote more punitively than judges in appointment systems, in line with public perceptions of crime. The effect should be particularly prominent when comparing judges in nonpartisan elective systems with judges in partisan elective systems. These hypotheses were tested using two separate multivariable regression models on a selection of criminal appeals cases from the State Supreme Court Data Project, where allegations of trial error were caused by discretionary decisions by the trial judge. The results of the first model were inconclusive, while the results in the second model showed partisan judges vote more punitively than non-partisan judges. The findings of the first model suggest that state supreme court judges are unaffected by selection mechanism when considering criminal appeals based on trial error. The second model shows that this examination may have failed to account for cross-state variables that potentially biased the results. Additionally, the focus on criminal appeals based on discretionary trial judge decisions may have not been the best arena in which to explore the hypotheses.

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