{"id":1012,"date":"2018-05-28T14:07:54","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T18:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1012"},"modified":"2018-05-28T14:07:54","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T18:07:54","slug":"black-defendants-get-longer-sentences-from-republican-appointed-judges-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=1012","title":{"rendered":"Black Defendants Get Longer Sentences From Republican-Appointed Judges, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Adam Liptak\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/span>May 28, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Federal Correctional Institution, Mendota, in California. A new study finds sentencing differences between Republican-appointed judges and Democratic appointees.<\/span>Credit<\/span>Max Whittaker for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 Judges appointed by Republican presidents gave longer sentences to black defendants and shorter ones to women than judges appointed by Democrats, according to\u00a0<\/span>a new study<\/a>\u00a0that analyzed data on more than half a million defendants.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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\u201cRepublican-appointed judges sentence black defendants to three more months than similar nonblacks and female defendants to two fewer months than similar males compared to Democratic-appointed judges,\u201d the study found, adding, \u201cThese differences cannot be explained by other judge characteristics and grow substantially larger when judges are granted more discretion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study was conducted by two professors at Harvard Law School,\u00a0Alma Cohen<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Crystal S. Yang<\/a>. They examined the sentencing practices of about 1,400 federal trial judges over more than 15 years, relying on information from the\u00a0Federal Judicial Center<\/a>, the\u00a0United States Sentencing Commission<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse<\/a>\u00a0at Syracuse University.<\/p>\n

Douglas A. Berman<\/a>, an authority on sentencing law at Ohio State University, said the study contained \u201camazing new empirical research.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s an extraordinarily important contribution to our statistical understanding of sentencing decision making in federal courts over the last two decades,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It has long been known that there is an overall racial sentencing gap, with judges of all political affiliations meting out longer sentences to black offenders. The new study confirmed this, finding that black defendants are sentenced to 4.8 months more than similar offenders of other races.<\/p>\n

It was also well known, and perhaps not terribly surprising, that Republican appointees are tougher on crime over all, imposing sentences an average of 2.4 months longer than Democratic appointees.<\/p>\n

But the study\u2019s findings on how judges\u2019 partisan affiliations affected the racial and gender gaps were new and startling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe racial gap by political affiliation is three months, approximately 65 percent of the baseline racial sentence gap,\u201d the authors wrote. \u201cWe also find that Republican-appointed judges give female defendants two months less in prison than similar male defendants compared to Democratic-appointed judges, 17 percent of the baseline gender sentence gap.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n