Representation and Coercion; Or, Is Justice Blind when It Runs for Office?

In the United States, only courts can ultimately authorize the incarceration or, in extreme cases, killing of individual citizens. Because appellate courts review only a tiny fraction of criminal cases, trial court judges occupy an enormously significant role in the administration of the criminal justice system. Given this authority, it is not surprising that judicial impartiality is a core value of Anglo-American jurisprudence. In 39 American states, trial judges must periodically stand for reelection. Does the need to secure reelection compromise the impartiality of trial court judges? Studying the performance of elected trial judges fuses two dominant concerns for political scientists: the coercive function of the state and the representation of citizen preferences by elected officials. This paper develops and tests a theory that specifies the conditions under which trial judges alter their sentencing behavior to improve their electoral prospects. We argue that because voters are at best only selectively attentive to sentencing behavior and because elected officials discount the future value of retaining office, trial judges will become more punitive as their terms proceed. Further, we expect that the effect of electoral proximity will be diminished when judges have already succeeded in retaining office, are more conservative, and are either very easy or very hard for voters to monitor. Examining over 22,000 Pennsylvania trial court sentences for aggravated assault, rape, and robbery convictions in the 1990s, we confirm that sentences for these crimes are significantly longer the closer the sentencing judge is to standing for reelection. We also find support for two of our three secondary hypotheses. We can attribute at least 2,772 years of additional prison time to this electoral dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]