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Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles

Author

Listed:
  • Ozkan Eren
  • Naci Mocan

Abstract

This paper analyzes the effects of emotional shocks associated with unexpected outcomes of football games played by a prominent college team in the state. It investigates the behavior of judges, the conduct of whom should, by law, be free of personal biases and emotions. It finds that unexpected losses increase disposition (sentence) lengths assigned by judges during the week following the game. Unexpected wins, or losses that were expected to be close contests ex-ante, have no impact. The effects of these emotional shocks are asymmetrically borne by black defendants. This presents evidence that the results are not influenced by defendant or attorney behavior or by defendants’ economic background. Importantly, the results are driven by judges who have received their bachelor’s degrees from the university with which the football team is affiliated. Different falsification tests and a number of auxiliary analyses demonstrate the robustness of the findings. These results provide evidence for the impact of emotions in one domain on a behavior in a completely unrelated domain among a uniformly highly-educated group of individuals (judges), with decisions involving high stakes (sentence lengths). They also point to the existence of a subtle and previously-unnoticed capricious application of sentencing. [Working Paper 22611]

Suggested Citation

  • Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan, 2016. "Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles," Working Papers id:11299, eSocialSciences.
    • Handle: RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:11299
    Note: Institutional Papers
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan, 2021. "Juvenile Punishment, High School Graduation, and Adult Crime: Evidence from Idiosyncratic Judge Harshness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(1), pages 34-47, March.
    2. Chen Daniel L., 2019. "Law and Literature: Theory and Evidence on Empathy and Guile," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 1-33, March.
    3. Chris Birdsall & Seth Gershenson & Raymond Zuniga, 2020. "The Effects of Demographic Mismatch in an Elite Professional School Setting," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(3), pages 457-486, Summer.
    4. Chen, Daniel L. & Philippe, Arnaud, 2018. "Clash of norms: Judicial leniency on defendant birthdays," IAST Working Papers 18-76, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    5. Chen, Daniel L., 2016. "Priming Ideology: Why Presidential Elections Affect U.S. Judges," TSE Working Papers 16-681, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Aug 2016.
    6. Chen, Daniel L. & Prescott, J.J., 2016. "Implicit Egoism in Sentencing Decisions: First Letter Name Effects with Randomly Assigned Defendants," IAST Working Papers 16-56, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    7. Ramos Maqueda,Manuel & Chen,Daniel Li, 2021. "The Role of Justice in Development : The Data Revolution," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9720, The World Bank.
    8. Christian Dippel & Michael Poyker, 2023. "Do Private Prisons Affect Criminal Sentencing?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(3), pages 511-534.
    9. Chen, Daniel L., 2018. "Machine Learning and Rule of Law," IAST Working Papers 18-88, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    10. Chen, Daniel L., 2018. "Machine Learning and the Rule of Law," TSE Working Papers 18-975, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    11. Daniel Weimar & Markus Schauberger, 2018. "The impact of sporting success on student enrollment," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 88(6), pages 731-764, August.
    12. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Brent, Daniel A., 2018. "Traffic and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 96-116.
    13. Chen, Daniel L. & Loecher, Markus, 2016. "Mood and the Malleability of Moral Reasoning: The Impact of Irrelevant Factors on Judicial Decisions," IAST Working Papers 16-49, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST), revised Sep 2019.
    14. Chen, Daniel L., 2016. "Mood and the Malleability of Moral Reasoning," TSE Working Papers 16-707, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Feb 2017.

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