Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-rxvq6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-11T07:08:33.145Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Effects of Decision Fatigue on Judicial Behavior: A Study of Arkansas Traffic Court Outcomes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2024

Rahul Hemrajani Open the ORCID record for Rahul Hemrajani [Opens in a new window]  and
Tony Hobert Jr.
Rahul Hemrajani*
Affiliation:
National Law School of India University, Bangalore, India
Tony Hobert Jr.*
Affiliation:
Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC, Department of Political Science, Philosophy, Religion & Legal Studies
*
Corresponding authors: Rahul Hemrajani and Tony Hobert, Jr.; Emails: rahulhemrajani@nls.ac.in; hoberta@winthrop.edu
Corresponding authors: Rahul Hemrajani and Tony Hobert, Jr.; Emails: rahulhemrajani@nls.ac.in; hoberta@winthrop.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Judges who hear multiple cases a day may become exhausted by the time later cases are heard, increasing susceptibility to cognitive depletion, yet the role of workload fatigue in decision-making from hearing cases has rarely been tested in the U.S. One problem is the lack of public data—most U.S. courts do not maintain time-stamped records of case hearings. Using an original dataset of all traffic cases heard in Pulaski County, Arkansas in 2019 and 2020, we examine whether decision fatigue affects case outcomes. We find that charges are less likely to be dismissed in arraignment hearings at the end of a court session than in those at the beginning. This pattern, however, does not hold for trial hearings, suggesting that the effects of fatigue may be context-specific. We suggest policy recommendations to mitigate the effects of decision fatigue in lower courts—courts having the most contact with citizens.

Keywords

decision makingjudicial behaviorlegal realismmental depletionmethods

Information

Type
Research Note
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , October 2024 , pp. 435 - 443
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abraham, Henry J. 1998. The Judicial Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Baum, Lawrence. 2009. Judges and Their Audiences. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chatziathanasiou, Konstantin. 2022. “Beware the lure of narratives: ‘Hungry judges’ should not motivate the use of ‘artificial intelligence’ in law.” German Law Journal 23(4): 452–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Daniel L., Moskowitz, Tobias J., and Shue, Kelly. 2016. “Decision making under the gambler’s fallacy.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 131(3): 1181–1242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Jonathan M. 2009. Inside Appellate Courts. Lansing: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Corbyn, Zöe. 2011. “Hungry Judges Dispense Rough Justice.” Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2011.227CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danziger, Shai, Levav, Jonathan, and Avnaim-Pesso, Liora. 2011. “Extraneous factors in judicial decisions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(17): 6889–6892.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Epstein, Lee, and Knight, Jack. 2013. “Reconsidering judicial preferences.” Annual Review of Political Science 16: 11–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Firebaugh, Glenn. 1988. “The ratio variables hoax in political science.” American Journal of Political Science. 32(2): 523–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
FMCSA. 2013. “49 CFR Parts 385 and 395.” U.S. Department of Transportation. https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/searchGoogle Scholar
Fleming, Vic. 2010. “Window fines” Revised Internal Memorandum. Requested document.Google Scholar
Gershon, Robyn R., Barocas, Briana, Canton, Allison N., Li, Xianbin, and Vlahov, David. 2009. “Mental, physical, and behavioral outcomes associated with perceived work stress in police officers.” Criminal Justice and Behavior 36(3): 275–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glöckner, Andreas. 2016. “The irrational hungry judge effect revisited: Simulations reveal that the magnitude of the effect is overestimated.” Judgment and Decision Making 11(6): 601–610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hünermund, Paul, and Louw, Beyers. 2020. “On the nuisance of control variables in regression nalysis.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.10314Google Scholar
Muraven, Mark, and Baumeister, Roy F.. 2000. “Self-Regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle?” Psychological Bulletin 126(2): 247–259.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perez, Oren. 2016. “Judicial strategies for reviewing conflicting expert evidence: Biases, heuristics, and higher-order evidence.” American Journal of Comparative Law 64(1): 75–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pocheptsova, Anastasiya, Amir, On, Dhar, Ravi, and Baumeister, Roy. 2009. “Deciding without resources: Resource depletion and choice in context.” Journal of Marketing Research 46(3): 344–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rachlinski, Jeffrey J., Guthrie, Chris, and Wistrich, Andrew J.. 2007. “Heuristics and biases in bankruptcy judges.” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 163(1): 167–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shroff, Ravi, and Vamourellis, Konstantinos. 2022. “Pretrial release judgments and decision fatigue.” Judgment and Decision Making 17(6): 1176–1207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swenson, David, Bibelhausen, Joan, Buchanan, Bree, Shaheed, David, and Yetter, Katheryn. 2020. “Stress and resiliency in the U.S. Judiciary.” Journal of the Professional Lawyer: 1–65.Google Scholar
Vohs, Kathleen D., Baumeister, Roy F., Schmeichel, Brandon J., Twenge, Jean M., Nelson, Noelle M., and Tice, Dianne M.. 2008. “Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: A limited-resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 94(5): 883–898.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weinshall-Margel, Keren, and Shapard, John. 2011. “Overlooked factors in the analysis of parole decisions.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108(42): E833–E833.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Hemrajani and Hobert supplementary material

Hemrajani and Hobert supplementary material
Download Hemrajani and Hobert supplementary material(File)
File 139.5 KB