Empirical Legal Studies

Electing Judges

It seems everywhere I turn there is discussion of moving away from electing judges and toward merit selection systems, especially due to presumed negative effects of campaign contributions, and it made me wonder about the extent to which such a move is supported by the empirical research.  So far, my inclination is to say it is not, given Bonneau and Hall's new book as well as Gibson's recent research. (However, the Brennan Center for Justice points to a review of Bonneau and Hall's book disputing its claims. ) This seems like the sort of "real world" research Senator Coburn was looking for, doesn't it?  (If you're not familiar with Senator Coburn's amendment, see here.  He seeks to abolish the Political Science program at NSF for being, for want of a better term, useless.)

Judicial Salaries: An Urgent Need Unmet

The federal judge for whom I clerked, The Honorable D. Brock Hornby, has written this article about federal judical salaries.

More on Instrumental Variables

According to Richard Nielsen over at the Social Science Statistics Blog, a paper by Angus Deaton (Princeton--Econ.) attempts to: "(1) discount the usefulness of instrumental variables for making causal inferences in development economics and (2) discount the usefulness of field experiments." I certainly agree with Richard that the paper is worth a read for those who work with (or criticize) instrumental variables.

Very Helpful On-Line Resource

Hastie et al. The Elements of Statistical Learning in pdf (here). Brief description and commentary (here).

Spotlighting Student Work: Lump Sum Settlements and "An Empty Statistic"

In recognition of the growing number of law and graduate students lurking on ELS Blog and in an effort to promote and grow the empirical legal studies field, the ELS Blog editors periodically spotlight promising student research. Jeremy Babener's Note (NYU Law--3L), Justifying the Structured Settlement Tax Subsidy: The Use of Lump Sum Settlements, critically explores the long-assumed belief underneath structured settlements from an empirical perspective. An excerpted abstract follows.

"Structured settlements have been subsidized by federal, state, and local taxes for nearly three decades. The subsidy, or tax exclusion, which encourages personal injury claimants to forgo a lump sum settlement in favor of long-term periodic payments, is premised upon the belief that claimants prematurely dissipate lump sum settlements. This belief has long been held within the structured settlement industry, and is frequently cited as a proven fact. Anecdotal evidence from industry practitioners, representing a broad cross-section of interests, certainly suggests the belief to be true. However, this article explores the available empirical data. It concludes that the danger of the dissipating claimant has yet to be proven, and that citations relied upon as evidence lack applicability, or sometimes any substance at all."

Atkins' Influence on Death Row Litigation

The Supreme Court's 2002 Atkins decision raised interesting questions amenable to empirical analysis. In An Empirical Look at Atkins vs. Virginia and its Application in Capital Cases, Cornell colleagues (and leading death penalty defense attorneys) John Blume, Sheri Johnson, and Christopher Seeds, publish preliminary results from their look-back study of Atkins' influence. The abstract follows.

"In Atkins vs. Virginia, the Supreme Court declared that evolving standards of decency and the Eighth Amendment prohibit the death penalty for individuals with intellectual disability (formerly, "mental retardation"). Both supporters and opponents of the categorical exemption, however, have criticized the Atkins opinion. The Atkins dissent, for example, urged that the decision would open the gates of litigation to a flood of frivolous claims. Another prominent criticism, heard from those more supportive of the Court's ruling, has been that the language the Court used—communicating that states must 'generally conform' to the clinical definitions of mental retardation—is ambiguous enough to permit states to stray from the clinical definitions and, consequently, for death eligibility to vary depending upon the jurisdiction in which a defendant is charged. This Article presents preliminary data responsive to these issues, and reports three basic findings. First, Atkins has not opened floodgates of non-meritorious litigation. Second, the success rates for Atkins claims vary dramatically between states and state deviations from the clinical definitions appear to have a palpable impact. Third, as compared to their representation on death row, African-American defendants both file and win a disproportionately high number of Atkins claims."

Bias in Spaeth Data?

With a hat tip to the Monkey Cage, I thought folks might be interested in taking a look at this paper.  I know my fellow editor Carolyn has done some research on the Spaeth data as well -- perhaps she'll weigh in on this research?  (FYI, I have not yet read the Harvey/Woodruff paper.)

Placebo Effect

Interesting discussion here.