Structuring Gender’s Impact: Judicial Voting Across Criminal Justice Cases
Madhavi McCall*
San Diego State University
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mccall{at}mail.sdsu.edu.
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Abstract |
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The importance of judge gender as a factor in judicial votes continues to attract much scholarly attention. I contribute to the debate on the influence of judge gender by examining the voting behavior of male and female state supreme court justices in three areas of criminal justice. I find that female justices, controlling for institutional, political, and legal constraints, are more likely than are their male counterparts to rule for the criminal defendant and in a broader array of cases than commonly thought. I conclude that judge gender is a significant factor in the outcome of judicial decisions and that the number of women on the courts is a factor in judicial decision making.
