Some Effects of State Judicial Election Structure

Although some studies explore possible systematic variation between elected and appointed judges, comparatively less work assesses possible differences flowing from the structure of state judicial elections.  With respect to the latter, frustrating such efforts is that most judicial election states elect their judges in a uniform manner.  A slight wrinkle exists in Kansas, however, where partisan elections select states judges in 14 districts and noncompetitive retention elections select judges in 17 districts.  A recent paper by Gordon (NYU) and Huber (Yale) exploits this unique judicial selection feature in Kansas and explores how it influences sentencing.  They find that Kansas judges in partisan election districts sentence more severely than their judicial counterparts in retention districts.  Additionally, they provide evidence that suggests this difference arises because of the incentives created by electoral competition, rather than the selection of inherently more punitive judges in competitive districts.