4 ms·

I haven't read the specifics of the study or refutations, but knowing how court scheduling works, it's likely closer to randomly distributed than not. Edit: ju

I haven't read the specifics of the study or refutations, but knowing how court scheduling works, it's likely closer to randomly distributed than not. Edit: just the scheduling, people. I'm not claiming the effect isn't due to that sort of thing, just that judges can't easily arrange their calendars so that "good" defendants are in the morning and "bad" ones are in the afternoon.

danielvf 8y ago
The study was about Israeli parole boards, not US court cases. The study was flawed from the beginning because they incorrectly categorized favorable/unfavorable decisions. However, ignoring that: The daily court schedules were arranged to minimize the amount of time lawyers and prisoners spent waiting in court. Each lawyer would usually represent several prisoners, and would go through all of their clients consecutively. The court would schedule the lawyers and clients starting after meal breaks. After all lawyers and their clients that were scheduled for a block of time had gone through, then they would fill the remaining time until the next meal with cases by prisoners without lawyers. Cases with lawyers had a 35% favorable outcome rate, while cases without lawyers would have a 15% favorable outcome rate. In addition, each lawyer would present their best case first and worst cases last. So yes, the daily calendars were arranged such that the first prisoner after a meal break was extremely likely to get a favorable outcome, and the prisoner right before a meal break had only a 15% chance of a favorable outcome.
mark212 8y ago
Court scheduling in US Courts isn't at all random. Even for cases on the same day, it's up to the judge to figure out in what order he or she will handle the appearances. And like this Israeli parole board, those with attorneys generally go first and it's not uncommon to have two or three matters grouped together and heard consecutively.

danielvf 8y ago

The study was about Israeli parole boards, not US court cases. The study was flawed from the beginning because they incorrectly categorized favorable/unfavorable decisions. However, ignoring that: The daily court schedules were arranged to minimize the amount of time lawyers and prisoners spent waiting in court. Each lawyer would usually represent several prisoners, and would go through all of their clients consecutively. The court would schedule the lawyers and clients starting after meal breaks. After all lawyers and their clients that were scheduled for a block of time had gone through, then they would fill the remaining time until the next meal with cases by prisoners without lawyers. Cases with lawyers had a 35% favorable outcome rate, while cases without lawyers would have a 15% favorable outcome rate. In addition, each lawyer would present their best case first and worst cases last. So yes, the daily calendars were arranged such that the first prisoner after a meal break was extremely likely to get a favorable outcome, and the prisoner right before a meal break had only a 15% chance of a favorable outcome.

mark212 8y ago

Court scheduling in US Courts isn't at all random. Even for cases on the same day, it's up to the judge to figure out in what order he or she will handle the appearances. And like this Israeli parole board, those with attorneys generally go first and it's not uncommon to have two or three matters grouped together and heard consecutively.