NCJ Number
185224
Journal
Social Science Quarterly Volume: 81 Issue: 3 Dated: September 2000 Pages: 750-762
Date Published
September 2000
Length
13 pages
Annotation
An analysis of the voting behavior of State supreme court judges from 1982 through 1993 in two substantive areas of law not generally regarded as women’s issues sought to determine whether female judges vote differently than their male colleagues.
Abstract
Prior research on the role of judge gender in voting behavior has led to competing theories about the impact of women judges. The current study focused on voting behavior in cases involving obscenity and death penalty sentencing. The data included all published obscenity decisions in that period and a random sample of decisions on capital punishment. The research used a logistic regression model to assess the impact of judge gender. Results revealed that women judges in State supreme courts tended to vote more liberally than their male counterparts in both death penalty and obscenity cases, controlling for party and region. Equally important, the presence of a woman on State supreme courts tended to increase the probability that male judges would also support the liberal position. Findings also indicated that the gender effects discovered do not appear to be an artifact of State ideology or the result of socialization patterns common to all women. Tables and 22 references (Author abstract modified)