Judicial Professional Background and Pretrial Detention Outcomes

In a peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Law and Courts, Oded Oren (Scrutinize) and Chad Topaz (Williams College; University of Colorado, Boulder; QSIDE Institute) analyzed nearly 70,000 New York City arraignments to examine whether a judge's professional background is linked to their pretrial detention and bail decisions. The answer is yes.

Former prosecutors and police officers make more severe pretrial decisions.

Comparing judges with law enforcement backgrounds to judges without law enforcement or legal services experience, controlling for case and defendant characteristics and court-time factors.

What We Found

After controlling for charge severity, criminal history, and other case factors, judges with prior careers as prosecutors or police officers made more severe pretrial decisions on average. This holds whether comparing them to all other judges or only to those without law enforcement or legal services backgrounds.

Because NYC cases are assigned on a rotating calendar and we find no evidence that judges with different backgrounds see systematically different cases, our findings are best explained by how judges decide cases rather than by systematic differences in case assignment.

Higher Bail Amounts, Even on Lower-Level Charges

When judges set cash bail, those with law enforcement backgrounds set substantially higher amounts: approximately 32% more than judges without law enforcement or legal services experience.

Conditional on cash bail being set, the 32% difference corresponds to an average increase of approximately $9,200 per defendant.

In addition, in misdemeanor and non-violent-felony cases that are eligible for detention, law enforcement background is associated with higher cash bail amounts when cash bail is imposed.

Legal Services Backgrounds Show No Distinct Effect

One might expect that former public defenders and other legal services attorneys would be more lenient than other judges. Our findings do not support this: Judges with legal services backgrounds are statistically indistinguishable from judges without law enforcement or legal services experience.

Who's on the NYC Bench

During the study’s period, judges with law enforcement experience were the largest group on New York City's arraignment bench, outnumbering those with legal services backgrounds two to one. This imbalance is neither unique to New York nor to trial courts.

New York City Arraignment Judges by Professional Experience:

What This Means in Practice

In New York City, the mayor appoints Criminal Court judges to 10-year terms. Our findings suggest that replacing a single former law enforcement judge with one who has neither law enforcement nor legal services experience would, over that term, result in:

About the Study

This analysis draws on official arraignment data from New York's Office of Court Administration and Division of Criminal Justice Services. We classified judges' professional backgrounds using court system profiles, legal publications, and other public sources. Our statistical models control for defendant demographics, charge severity, criminal history, pending cases, and administrative factors including court location and time period.

Preprint copy (no paywall): Open Science Framework

Published study (paywall): Journal of Law and Courts

Replication data: Journal of Law and Courts Dataverse