Essays on the Judiciary
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Date
2020-09-24
Authors
Mindock, Maxwell
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
The complexities of the Judicial system provides unique research opportunities to model and learn about human behavior. Whether it be the opinions of United States Supreme Court Justices or the length of time a defendant is sentenced to incarceration, judicial outcomes are of extreme importance to all involved. In this thesis, I study vote determination on the Supreme Court, finding evidence of systematic variation in vote dependencies that align with Justice partisanship, sentencing cohort effects within criminal sentencing, finding evidence judges do not sentence defendants independently of other defendants, and multiplicity effects within criminal sentencing, finding evidence judges do not sentence offenses independently among defendants with multiple offenses and that the black-white racial gap in sentencing is larger than previously thought. This dissertation includes previously unpublished co-authored material.