Empirical Legal Studies

Sentencing Studies and Quasi-Natural Experiments

Today's New York Times reports that one of California's responses to its crushing fiscal mess is to implement a new (and much more aggressive) early release program for non-violent prisoners who are unlikely to recidivate. As Laura Appleman notes over at The Faculty Lounge, California's new early release program is being closely watched by other cash-strapped states also looking to reduce spending. Assuming that at least some states do not experiment with dramatic changes to early release programs, however, California's program might generate helpful data for those seeking to test the efficacy of its new policy.

Studying Federal Judicial Decisionmaking Studies

An interesting paper by Pauline Kim (Wash U), How Should We Study District Judge Decision-Making?, urges judicial decisionmaking scholars to distinguish federal trial and appellate judges on institutional grounds. Her thesis raises important research design issues. An excerpted abstract follows.

"Too often, empirical studies of the district courts rely on an implicit assumption that judging at the trial court level is fundamentally the same as judging at the appellate level. We argue that this approach is misguided, because the nature of district judges’ work is substantially different from that of appellate judges. For example, unlike in the typical appellate case, a district judge may rule in a single case on multiple occasions and on different types of questions, only a few of which could be dispositive but all of which affect the case’s progress and ultimate outcome. In this Essay, we argue for a new and more suitable approach to studying decision-making in the federal district courts - one that takes into account the trial level litigation process and the varied nature of the tasks judging in a trial court entails. We critique the existing empirical literature’s predominant method for studying district courts - analysis of district court opinions, usually published opinions - and discuss the limitations and biases inherent in this approach and propose a new approach to studying decision-making by district judges. By taking advantage of the electronic docketing system now operating in all federal district courts, researchers can use dockets, orders, and other case documents, as well as opinions, as data sources, thereby incorporating into their analysis the relevant institutional features of district courts. In particular, expanding the focus beyond opinions allows researchers to capture both the procedural context and the iterative nature of district judge decision-making."

American Bar Foundation: Call for Visitors, 2010-11

 The American Bar Foundation invites scholars to join the intellectual community of the ABF for the 2010-2011 academic year (8/31/10 to 6/30/11).

For visitors, the ABF offers an office, phone, and computer but no stipend. The ABF encourages national and international scholars on leave or sabbatical to take advantage of the ABF's diverse intellectual community and excellent facilities.

Preference will be given to visitors whose scholarship coincides with the research agenda of the ABF and who will be in residence fulltime. Visitors will participate in the intellectual life of the ABF, including participation in seminars.

If you have an interest in this opportunity, please send an email to Robert Nelson  at [email protected], subject line: Visiting Scholars Program, which states (1) the topic on which you are working, (2) the preferred dates for residence, and (3) the days each week you would expect to be at the ABF, (4) attach a CV. Applications should be received by April 1, 2010 though later applications will be considered as space allows. The ABF Appointments Committee will review applications and prospective visitors will be notified in late Spring 2010.

Empirical Effects of a Duty To Warn

Torts folks might be interested in a recent paper by Griffin Sims Edwards (Emory, Econ), Doing Their Duty: An Empirical Analysis of the Unintended Effect of Tarasoff v Regents on Homicidal Activity. In it, the author seeks to "tease out the dominating effect of Tarasoff by using a codification of Tarasoff laws and a fixed effects (FE) model to estimate Tarasoff’s effect on homicides in the United States." The abstract follows:

"The effect of state duty to warn laws inspired by Tarasoff v. Regents has been debated for decades. Required reporting of patient threats to the authorities and potential victims gives incentive to the mental health professional to not meet with the most at risk patients, or at very least make the current state of the law abundantly clear to the patient as to suggest suppression of the most at risk statements leaving the psychologist in liability-free ignorance to the true mental state of the patient. As a result, the mental help needed to treat the patient may be foregone and violence may ensue. Exploiting the variation in the timing and style of duty to warn laws across states, I use a fixed effects model to find that, all else equal and controlling for the prevalence of crack, mandatory duty to warn laws cause an increase in homicides of 9.5% or 0.83 people per 100,000. These results are robust to model specifications, falsification tests, and help to clarify the true, albeit unintended, affect of state duty to warn laws."