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We document judicial leniency on defendant birthdays across 5 million decisions. French sentences are 1% fewer and 3% shorter. U.S. federal sentences are 33% shorter in the day component of sentences (the month component remains unaffected). New Orleans sentences are 15% shorter overall. No leniency appears on the days before or after a defendant’s birthday. Federal judges using deterrence language in opinions, are unaffected, isolating the judicial as opposed to defendant channel. The effect is doubled when judge and defendant share the same race. Our courtroom setting rules out many models of social preferences with reciprocity motives, but may be consistent with indirect reciprocity and guilt aversion based on the judge’s beliefs about the defendant’s reference point.

Cet article explore les biais affectant les decisions de justice en matiere penale. Si les magistrats ne semblent pas avoir une perception de la gravite des faits differente de celle de leurs concitoyens, le contexte dans lequel se deroule un proces et les caracteristiques des participants influent sur le verdict. Ainsi, la mediatisation de faits divers tragiques provoque une augmentation de la duree des peines prononcees en cour d’assises, et des differences territoriales peuvent etre observees. Biais de genre ou d’origine et biais cognitifs ont par ailleurs investi l’enceinte du tribunal.

This paper uses the universe of convictions in France between 2000 and 2003 to document the gender gap in sentencing. It reveals three main findings. First, during this period, and after controlling for very precise descriptions of the offences as well as other observable characteristics, women received prison sentences that were 15 days shorter, on average, than those of men who committed comparable offences. This represents a 33% decrease relative to the average sentence length in the sample (45 days in the entire sample). Second, this gender gap is also observed for mixed‐gender pairs of criminals (one man and one woman) who are convicted together, on the same day, by the same person and for the same crime. Finally, this paper presents robust evidence that the gender gap is affected by the gender of the judge, but not that of the prosecutor. Using the evolution of the courts’ composition between 2000 and 2003, the results show that a one‐standard‐deviation increase in the number of women in the court decreases the gender gap by 10%.

We add to our understanding of the optimal method of judicial selection by exploiting an unusual feature in North Carolina: judges rotate location every 6 months. This allows us to identify the existence and source of sentencing variation over the electoral cycle. We show that when elections approach, felony sentences rise. This increase is found exclusively when judges are sentencing in their district of election, and only when elections are contested. When judges hear cases outside their home district, sentences do not significantly vary over the electoral cycle. Our results show that electoral sentencing cycles can be explained by strategic sentencing by judges in an attempt to please voters. The unique setting allows us to reject alternative behavioral or contextual explanations for the rise in sentences as elections approach. (JEL K42).

Background We aimed to assess the prognostic value of repeated measurements of serum (1–3)-β-D-glucan (BDG), mannan-antigen (mannan-Ag), and antimannan antibodies (antimannan-Ab) for the occurrence of invasive candidiasis (IC) in a high-risk nonimmunocompromised population. Methods This was a preplanned ancillary analysis of the EMPIRICUS Randomized Clinical Trial, including nonimmunocompromised critically ill patients with intensive care unit–acquired sepsis, multiple Candida colonization, and multiple organ failure who were exposed to broad-spectrum antibacterial agents. BDG (>80 and >250 pg/mL), mannan-Ag (>125 pg/mL), and antimannan-Ab (>10 AU) were collected repeatedly. We used cause-specific hazard models. Biomarkers were assessed at baseline in the whole cohort (cohort 1). Baseline covariates and/or repeated measurements and/or increased biomarkers were then studied in the subgroup of patients who were still alive at day 3 and free of IC (cohort 2). Results Two hundred thirty-four patients were included, and 215 were still alive and free of IC at day 3. IC developed in 27 patients (11.5%), and day 28 mortality was 29.1%. Finally, BDG >80 pg/mL at inclusion was associated with an increased risk of IC (CSHR[IC], 4.67; 95% CI, 1.61–13.5) but not death (CSHR[death], 1.20; 95% CI, 0.71–2.02). Conclusions Among high-risk patients, a first measurement of BDG >80 pg/mL was strongly associated with the occurrence of IC. Neither a cutoff of 250 pg/mL nor repeated measurements of fungal biomarkers seemed to be useful to predict the occurrence of IC. The cumulative risk of IC in the placebo group if BDG >80 pg/mL was 25.39%, which calls into question the efficacy of empirical therapy in this subgroup.

This paper presents the results of a field experiment designed to reduce gender discrimination in student evaluations of teaching (SET). In the first intervention, students receive a normative statement reminding them that they should not discriminate in SETs. In the second intervention, the normative statement includes precise information about how other students (especially male students) have discriminated against female teachers in previous years. The purely normative statement has no significant impact on SET overall satisfaction scores, suggesting that a blanket awareness-raising campaign may be inefficient to reduce discrimination. However, the informational statement appears to significantly reduce gender discrimination. The effect we find mainly comes from a change in male students’ evaluation of female teachers.

Le corps de tous ces gens qui avaient un corps lui inspirait, bien sûr, un trouble qui ressemblait à de l’envie, mais aussi une crispation d’orgueil et de hautaine fierté.Italo Calvino, Le Chevalier inexistant Le nom de l’Arioste ou celui des principaux personnages de son grand poème épique Roland furieux apparaît souvent dans l’œuvre de Giono et il m’a semblé intéressant d’interroger cette source encore mal connue mais très présente en particulier dans le cycle du Hussard. J’évoquerai donc d...

We explore how television broadcasting of unrelated criminal justice events affects sentencing. Exploiting as-good-as-random variation in news content before a verdict, we find that sentences are 3 months longer when the verdict is reached after coverage of crime. Sentences increase with media exposure to crime, not crime itself, and the effect tapers off quickly. Our results suggest that professional experience and expertise mitigate the effect of irrelevant external information. This paper highlights the influence of noise in the news cycle: media can temporarily influence decisions by changing what is top of the mind rather than signaling deeper changes in offending or societal concerns.

Resume Dans les pays developpes, la lepre est une pathologie rare et meconnue qui se manifeste habituellement par des lesions cutanees et des neuropathies peripheriques sensitives. Sa revelation par une polyarthrite peut entrainer une errance diagnostique. Nous rapportons le cas d’une lepre borderline lepromateuse avec reaction de reversion chez un homme de 26 ans originaire de Mayotte chez qui le diagnostic de sarcoidose avait initialement ete retenu devant le tableau clinique articulaire et cutane ainsi que l’anatomopathologie.

What is the effect of introducing jury members in criminal courts? While surveys regularly point out a demand by citizens for harsher punishment, the differences between surveys’ and real decisions’ conditions are large enough to cast a doubt on the results. The introduction of two jurors into a court composed of three professional judges in two French regions and for a subsample of crimes during sixteen months offers a good natural experiment. Difference-in-differences or triple-difference methods do not permit me to identify any major change in the probability of being convicted or in sentences given by a court including jurors. If some characteristics of the reform could partly explain those null results, they clearly go against the hypothesis of a major disagreement between professional judges and citizens when they have to make real decisions in criminal cases.

International audience

15-09; International audience

We study spatial variation in criminal sentencing. We show the existence of local sentencing practices varying widely even across geographically proximate areas. Using compulsory rotation of judges in North Carolina, we find that judges arriving in a new court gradually converge toward local sentencing practices. We provide evidence that convergence in sentencing corresponds to a process of learning about local practices, which is accelerated by the presence of senior judges in the district, and that these sentencing practices are correlated with local norms of behavior. Finally, we discuss the theoretical implications of these results for the optimal design of judicial systems.

Si les mythes représentent souvent la grandeur et la beauté de l'aspiration au savoir, inséparable de la condition humaine, ils en explorent aussi de manière récurrente les périls, qu'ils figurent à travers des personnages au destin terrible et fascinant : de Cassandre et d'Œdipe à Faust et Frankenstein, en passant par Prométhée, Narcisse ou Psyché, se dessine en variations potentiellement infinies le cortège des êtres qui n'ont ou ne donnent accès à la connaissance qu'au prix des plus grands malheurs pour autrui et/ou pour eux-mêmes. Or, en tête de ce cortège, se trouvent les Sirènes du chant XII de l'Odyssée, dont le chant merveilleux est promesse de mort autant que de savoir et qui, dans de nombreuses versions du mythe, sont finalement à leur tour vaincues, mutilées voire tuées. L'équation savoir = danger posée de manière à la fois implacable et énigmatique par le texte homérique autour des Sirènes a été le point de départ d'une immense chaîne de réécritures : qu'elles détiennent un savoir véritable ou n'en offrent qu'une pure virtualité, qu'elles soient dangereuses ou en danger, ces créatures hybrides, femmes-oiseaux ou femmes-poissons, dont même le nombre est instable, n'ont jamais cessé de hanter la littérature de leur présence aussi séduisante qu'inquiétante. Le présent volume se veut une enquête sur les raisons, les modalités et les effets de cette présence ; du temps d'Homère à nos jours, il trace en deux volets – le premier consacré aux Sirènes grecques et romaines, le second allant du Moyen Âge au XXIe siècle – une histoire littéraire de ce mythe fondateur du savoir périlleux.

Le projet de confronter le mythe d’Ulysse face aux Sirènes avec celui de Narcisse part du constat que l’un et l’autre sont pris dans le mirage d’un objet « beau », aux effets médusants redoutables. Nous souhaitons montrer que ce n’est pas tant la beauté de ces objets (le reflet de Narcisse sur un plan d’eau ; le chant envoûtant des Sirènes) qui les fascine que la nature clivée de ces objets. Ces clivages viennent de ce que l’être parlant est à la fois fini et sans limites : Narcisse découvre à ses dépens que la parole qui suscite en lui le désir de ne faire qu’un avec l’objet qui l’attire est en même temps ce qui rend cette fusion impossible. De même Ulysse est attiré par les Sirènes car, mi-mortelles, mi-divines, elles ont accès aux Destinées humaines. Ulysse plus que tout autre souhaite savoir quelle trace il laissera. Mais son destin se confond avec le Poème dont il écrit les épisodes, et il ne doit donc pas, lui, y laisser sa vie. We have entended to compare the myth of Odysseus meeting the Sirens with the myth of Narcissus because they are both charmed by beautiful objects fearfully able to petrify. We hope to demonstrate that it is not so much the beauty of these objects (the reflection of Narcissus in a pond; the bewitching song of the Sirens) that fascinates them as their splitted nature. The origin of those splittings lies in the fact that speaking beings are both limited and unlimited: Narcissus finds out at his own expense that language, which makes him wish to merge into the object of his desire, is all at once what makes this merging impossible. Likewise Odysseus is drawn to the Sirens because, half-mortal half-divine, they have access to human destinies. More than anyone, Odysseus wishes to know what memory he leaves behind. But his destiny is included in the Poem whose chapters he is writing; so he must, as for himself, stay alive.

Despite the high efficiency of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), some patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) will display residual disease that can become resistant to treatment, indicating intraclonal heterogeneity in chronic‐phase CML (CP‐CML). To determine the basis of this heterogeneity, we conducted the first exhaustive characterization of the DNA methylation pattern of sorted CP‐CML CD34+CD15− (immature) and CD34−CD15+ (mature) cells at diagnosis (prior to any treatment) and compared it to that of CD34+CD15− and CD34−CD15+ cells isolated from healthy donors (HD). In both cell types, we identified several hundreds of differentially methylated regions (DMRs) showing DNA methylation changes between CP‐CML and HD samples, with only a subset of them in common between CD34+CD15− and CD34−CD15+ cells. This suggested DNA methylation variability within the same CML clone. We also identified 70 genes that could be aberrantly repressed upon hypermethylation and 171 genes that could be aberrantly expressed upon hypomethylation of some of these DMRs in CP‐CML cells, among which 18 and 81, respectively, were in CP‐CML CD34+CD15− cells only. We then validated the DNA methylation and expression defects of selected candidate genes. Specifically, we identified GAS2, a candidate oncogene, as a new example of gene the hypomethylation of which is associated with robust overexpression in CP‐CML cells. Altogether, we demonstrated that DNA methylation abnormalities exist at early stages of CML and can affect the transcriptional landscape of malignant cells. These observations could lead to the development of combination treatments with epigenetic drugs and TKI for CP‐CML.