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Judicial Behavior After a Change of Regime: The Effects of Judge and Defendant Characteristics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Taavi Annus  and
Margit Tavits
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Abstract

This article examines the determinants of judicial behavior in the context of transition. It tests two assumptions: first, that the judges with experience from the pretransition criminal justice system behave differently from the judges with no such experience; second, that minorities are discriminated against due to their dominant position in society before the transition and stereotypical attitudes after the transition. Using evidence from trial-level courts in Estonia, we find no statistically significant effects between case outcomes, the experience of the judge, and the ethnicity of the suspect.

Type
Articles of General Interest
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 2004 , pp. 711 - 736
Copyright
© 2004 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

Authors would like to thank the Estonian Ministry of Justice and the Estonian Supreme Court for access to their data. Taavi Annus acknowledges the financial support provided by the Estonian National Science Foundation grant No. 4523. Earlier versions of this article were delivered at the XIII Nordiske Statskundskabskongres of the Nordic Political Science Association, Aalborg, Denmark, August 15–17, 2002, and at the Annual Meeting of Southern Political Science Association, Savannah, GA, November 6–9, 2002.

References

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Case Cited

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