Federal Judicial Districts Research Articles

Federal criminal sentencing: race-based disparate impact and differential treatment in judicial districts

Race-based inequity in federal criminal sentencing is widely acknowledged, and yet our understanding of it is far from complete. Inequity may arise from several sources, including direct bias of courtroom actors and structural bias that produces racially disparate impacts. Irrespective of these sources, inequity may also originate from different loci within the federal system. We bring together the questions of the sources and loci of inequity. The purpose of our study is to quantify race-based disparate impact and differential treatment at the national level and at the level of individual federal judicial districts. We analyze over one-half million sentencing records publicly available from the United States Sentencing Commission database, spanning the years 2006 to 2020. At the system-wide level, Black and Hispanic defendants receive average sentences that are approximately 19 months longer and 5 months longer, respectively. Demographic factors and sentencing guideline elements account for nearly 17 of the 19 months for Black defendants and all five of the months for Hispanic defendants, demonstrating the disparate impact of the system at the national level. At the individual district level, even after controlling for each district’s unique demographics and implementation of sentencing factors, 14 districts show significant differences for minoritized defendants as compared to white ones. These unexplained differences are evidence of possible differential treatment by judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys.

Sentencing of Technical and Low-Level Supervision Violations: An Analysis of Fixed Effects Across Federal Judicial Districts

A considerable amount of previous research has examined the iatrogenic effects of mass imprisonment. This work has often considered the fact that the sentencing of people for low-level supervision violations is a contributing factor to the prison population. Relatively little work, however, has examined the factors which specifically influence the sentencing of probation and parole violators for technical and other low-level infractions. The present study analyzed over 44,000 cases of individuals who appeared in federal courts between 2013 and 2017 for relatively minor violations of federal community-based supervision. Using multilevel analysis to account for the nested quality of federal sentencing data, the study examined assorted individual-level legal and extra-legal effects on various sentencing outcomes. Effects were found for gender, having admitted to supervision violations, and predicate offense of conviction. Implications are presented.

White House Opioid Commission Targets Trouble Spots, Misses Some

White House Opioid Commission Targets Trouble Spots, Misses Some

Citizenship Status and Arrest Patterns for Violent and Narcotic-Related Offenses in Federal Judicial Districts along the U.S./Mexico Border

Media reports routinely reference the drug-related violence in Mexico, linking crime in communities along the Southwest U.S. Border to illegal immigrants. The primary purpose of the current research is to examine whether the media assertions can be supported. Logistic regression models were run to determine the impact of citizenship on the likelihood of disproportionate arrest for federal drug and violent crimes, along the U.S./Mexico border. In arrests for homicide, assault, robbery, and weapons offenses, U.S. citizens were disproportionately more likely than non-citizens to be arrested. The only federal crime where non-citizens were disproportionately more likely to be arrested than were U.S. citizens was for marijuana offenses. Results of the current study challenge the myth of the criminal immigrant.

The Impact of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 on Trends in Federal Sex Trafficking Cases

In this study, we addressed the need for empirical research on human trafficking by compiling unique data relating to criminal charges filed in federal judicial districts and using these data to examine trends in sex trafficking-related cases, as well as the impact on those trends of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). Results from our regression models indicate that the proportion of all charges filed by federal prosecutors that involved sex trafficking and related cases increased significantly between 1994 and 2007. The rate of increase, however, slowed in the time period following the passage of the TVPA, suggesting that the TVPA may have helped to mitigate increases in new cases. In addition, our results show statistically significant inverse relationships between immigration and sex trafficking-related charges filed, providing new evidence to support the possibility that some sex trafficking-related cases may be being prosecuted as immigration cases instead.

Interdistrict Variation in the Implementation of the Crack Retroactivity Policy by U.S. District Courts

In 2007, after years of dissatisfaction with the 100-to-1 disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine, the U.S. Sentencing Commission amended the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, reducing by two levels the base offense level assigned to threshold quantities of crack cocaine. The amendment was subsequently made retroactive, which required the federal courts to process approximately 20,000 prisoner motions for sentence reduction. Using data collected from a case study of one particular district as well as a survey of representatives from the 94 federal judicial districts, this study examines the process of “crack retroactivity” implementation. The authors found that court communities varied greatly with respect to their organizational arrangements, procedures, and motivations. Although U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services played an important role in every district, how and why districts organized to respond to crack retroactivity varied. The study findings also indicate that sentencing procedures may be another mechanism through which location affects sentencing outcomes.

Racial/Ethnic Threat and Federal Sentencing

This study examines whether federal sentencing decisions are influenced by the racial/ethnic composition of federal court districts. Multilevel models of individual cases within federal judicial districts show that Black defendants receive moderately longer sentences than Whites, and that Hispanics and Whites receive similar sentences. These race/ethnicity effects on sentence length are found to vary across federal districts but not as predicted by racial threat theory. In contrast to racial threat predictions, Black sentence lengths are not significantly conditioned by the district Black population. Contrary to racial threat predictions, Hispanic defendants receive the harshest sentences when they account for the smallest share of the population (1 to 3 percent) and the most lenient sentences when they make up more sizable shares of district populations (more than 27 percent). Our results indicate that racial threat theory provides an inadequate explanation of how social contexts influence the federal sentencing of Blacks and Hispanics.

Debtor Discharge and Creditor Repayment in Chapter 13

The consumer bankruptcy system plays an enormous, albeit largely under-appreciated, role in the United States economy. There were nearly 1.6 million consumer bankruptcy filings in the United States in 2004 - more than twice the number just ten years earlier, and more than one filing for every 70 households in the country. Nearly a third of these filings were under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code. (Chapter 13 provides for individual debt readjustment pursuant to a repayment plan, whereas Chapter 7 provides for liquidation of assets to pay creditor claims.) Yet, little is known about what debtors and creditors achieve in Chapter 13 cases, or how well the Chapter 13 system serves its intended purposes. This article, co-authored by Associate Professor Andrew J. Velkey, reports on the findings of the Chapter 13 Project, a national empirical study of 795 Chapter 13 bankruptcy filings in seven federal judicial districts. Funded by the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and the American Bankruptcy Institute, it is the first and only national study of its kind. It provides a detailed portrait of the Chapter 13 system and the extent to which Chapter 13 has fulfilled its principal purposes - debtor fresh start, on the one hand, and creditor repayment, on the other. The article first reports on who is using Chapter 13 - the gender, income, indebtedness and other bankruptcy filings of the debtors in the sample. It then reports on the extent to which the debtors in the seven districts completed their plans and obtained a discharge. Next, we consider various debtor characteristics - gender, income, amount and type of debt, debt-income ratio, other filings - and certain plan features - length, proposed distribution to unsecured creditors, income reserved for payment of living expenses - for their relation to case outcome. Regarding creditor repayment, the study reports in detail on the amounts and types of debt that are collected by creditors in Chapter 13 cases. The Project has produced a wealth of new information and insights into the Chapter 13 system. Some of the highlights include: Most of the debtors in the sample were far less affluent than the population as a whole. At least 50% of the debtors had filed one or more other petitions. Discharge rates varied significantly by district, but overall only one-third of the debtors completed a plan. We found statistically significant correlations between case outcome and debtor income, amount and type of debt, and other filings. Equally revealing, the study found no significant relationship between case outcome and plan feasibility, proposed plan length or proposed distribution to unsecured creditors. Regarding creditor repayment, the study reports that the primary creditor beneficiaries by far of the Chapter 13 system are secured creditors; and that less than a third of trustee disbursements were to general unsecured creditors. The median amount paid to unsecured creditors in all cases was $0.

Free at Last to Vote: The Alabama Origins of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Two origins of the Voting Rights Act are familiar to us. Most prominent is the March 1965 assault of Alabama state troopers and Dallas County, Alabama deputy sheriffs and their posse on civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The Supreme Court tells a slightly different story. In upholding the constitutionality of this extraordinary law, the Court emphasized the history of denials of voting rights through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution. There is however a different story. The remarkable provisions of this law did not spring full grown from the Johnson administration or the Congress, but were based in large part on lessons learned in the government's litigation of voting rights cases in the deep South in the early 1960's. This book explains how Department of Justice litigation under the 1957, 1960 and 1964 Civil Rights Acts contributed to the content of the Voting Rights Act. It places flesh on the skeletal story of the origins of the Voting Rights Act told in other books, and expands on the conventional understanding of the origins of the Voting Rights Act, which fails to explain how the substantive content of the Act was shaped, emphasizing instead the crisis that triggered congressional resolve to do decisive to end racial discrimination against black citizens seeking to exercise their right to vote. Once the public was determined to do something, it would still have to decide what that something should be. What should the legislation provide, beyond what had already been enacted? My study focuses on three of those cases, one from each of the federal judicial districts in Alabama, each tried by a different federal judge. In one of the cases, the district court fashioned very effective relief; in one the court's relief was less effective; and in one the federal court, at every step of the way, resisted providing effective relief. The set of cases serves to explain how the litigation led both to the development of refined legal standards and remedies which would serve as models for the Voting Rights Act and to delays and disappointments which would serve to justify the stringent remedies of the Act.

Mortgage Market Sensitivity to Bankruptcy Modification

This paper examines the policy assumption underlying the special protection given to home mortgages in bankruptcy - namely that protecting lenders from losses in bankruptcy will encourage them to lend more and at lower rates, thus encouraging homeownership. This paper tests this policy assumption empirically using both current and historical mortgage market data. Current mortgage origination pricing, private mortgage insurance premiums, and secondary market pricing all indicate that mortgage markets are indifferent to bankruptcy modification risk. Historical mortgage pricing data from the 1980s and 1990s, when a particularly significant type of modification was permitted in almost half of federal judicial districts, also indicates that mortgage markets are largely indifferent to bankruptcy modification risk.

Free at last to vote: the Alabama origins of the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Two origins of the Voting Rights Act are familiar to us. Most prominent is the March 1965 assault of Alabama state troopers and Dallas County, Alabama deputy sheriffs and their posse on civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The Supreme Court tells a slightly different story. In upholding the constitutionality of this extraordinary law, the Court emphasized the history of denials of voting rights through unremitting and ingenious defiance of the Constitution. There is however a different story. The remarkable provisions of this law did not spring full grown from the Johnson administration or the Congress, but were based in large part on lessons learned in the government's litigation of voting rights cases in the deep South in the early 1960's. This book explains how Department of Justice litigation under the 1957, 1960 and 1964 Civil Rights Acts contributed to the content of the Voting Rights Act. It places flesh on the skeletal story of the origins of the Voting Rights Act told in other books, and expands on the conventional understanding of the origins of the Voting Rights Act, which fails to explain how the substantive content of the Act was shaped, emphasizing instead the crisis that triggered congressional resolve to do decisive to end racial discrimination against black citizens seeking to exercise their right to vote. Once the public was determined to do something, it would still have to decide what that something should be. What should the legislation provide, beyond what had already been enacted? My study focuses on three of those cases, one from each of the federal judicial districts in Alabama, each tried by a different federal judge. In one of the cases, the district court fashioned very effective relief; in one the court's relief was less effective; and in one the federal court, at every step of the way, resisted providing effective relief. The set of cases serves to explain how the litigation led both to the development of refined legal standards and remedies which would serve as models for the Voting Rights Act and to delays and disappointments which would serve to justify the stringent remedies of the Act.

Medical Problems and Bankruptcy Filings

This paper explores the financial impact of medical problems, using data from Phase III of the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, a survey of 1,974 individual bankruptcy petitioners conducted during the first quarter of 1999 in eight federal judicial districts. Although the questionnaire covered a variety of topics, this paper focuses on debtors' identification of illness or injury as a reason for filing, medical debts, and health insurance coverage. One out of four debtors, or an estimated 326,441 families in 1999, identified an illness or injury as a reason for filing for bankruptcy. One third of the debtors said that they had substantial medical bills, i.e., that they had incurred $1,000 or more in medical bills not covered by insurance. Combining those identifying medical reasons with those indicating substantial medical debts (an overlapping but not perfectly coextensive group), the financial consequences of medical problems were a factor in the bankruptcy cases of an estimated 596,198 families in 1999. Health insurance coverage was sparse for the group, with one in five debtors reporting that they had no health insurance for any family member. The absence of insurance, however, did not correlate with a debtor's identifying a medical problem. Those who had insurance and those who did not were about equally distributed among those who identified a medical problem and those who did not. The data were re-analyzed by separating the responses of single filing men, single filing women, and joint filing married couples. Households without a male present were nearly twice as likely to file for bankruptcy giving a medical reason or identifying a substantial medical debt as households with a male present. The proportion of debtors providing medical reasons for filing also varied with the debtors' age. Of debtors 65 or older, 47.6 percent listed a medical reason, as compared with 7.5 percent of debtors under 25. Previous studies considering medical problems and bankruptcy in the United States are summarized, although the methods used and results obtained are not directly comparable with the current findings.

Direct Costs in Chapter 11 Bankruptcies

This paper makes the first attempt at a comprehensive and general assessment of chapter 11 costs. The findings are based on a random sample of 118 case files from six federal judicial districts. The data was collected by hand through reading of individual files. We find that chapter 11 costs appear to be of a relatively low magnitude. In the median chapter 11 case, costs consumed 4.7% of distributions to all creditors or, stated alternatively, 3.5% of total assets listed at filing. The paper also informs a theoretical debate about the efficiency of secured credit. Our results suggest that secured credit can create efficiencies by lowering chapter 11 costs. Unsecured creditors also appeared to be receiving significant recoveries. At the same time, we also find evidence that secured credit may result in wealth transfer that decrease firm value. From a bankruptcy-costs perspective, secured credit appears to be a net gain for the firm. We stop short, however, of an unqualified endorsement of secured credit. Although secured credit may lower chapter 11 costs, it also may have pernicious, unmeasured effects on firm value.

Federalizing Crime: Assessing the Impact on the Federal Courts

This article examines the history of federal criminal jurisdiction and criminal enforcement, and reviews federal caseload statistics. The federal criminal caseload grew dramatically between 1980 and the mid-1990s, but this increase tells only part of the story. The federal criminal caseload has fluctuated widely over the past two decades, and the number of criminal cases today is about the same as it was in the early 1970s. Although criminal cases now account for only one-fifth of the federal caseload, they take a large and disproportionate share of federal judicial resources. In more than one-third of federal judicial districts, criminal cases now compose more than half of the trial docket. The increased allocation of judicial resources to criminal cases reflects not only changes in the kinds of criminal cases being prosecuted but factors including more time-consuming sentencing procedures and a higher conviction rate.

Local Legal Culture and the Control of Litigation

In 1983, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were modified to mandate sanctions against attorneys who filed frivolous pleadings or motions or who failed to make reasonable efforts to verify facts or statements of law made in pleadings or motions. There is substantial variation among federal judicial districts in the use of this Rule 11 provision. To what degree can these variations be explained by situational or legal factors? Does one need to use a concept such as local legal culture to account for at least some of the variation? These are the questions addressed by this article. We find that variations in most Rule 11-related activities can be explained by structural and situational factors. We conclude that beyond the expectations created by specific structural and legal factors, one does not need to resort to local legal culture to explain Rule 11-related phenomena. We suggest that the conditions that make local legal culture a useful construct in the context of the criminal courts may not apply in the civil justice system.

The Aftermath of Injury: Cultural Factors in Compensation Seeking in Canada and the United States

Injury is common in all societies. Americans are perceived as quick to respond to injury by turning to the legal system. This article compares compensation seeking by Americans and Canadians, examining the degree to which cultural factors shape the response of injured parties in the two countries and the extent to which resources and experience influence individual action. Drawing on two large-scale telephone surveys, one conducted in five federal judicial districts around the United States and one conducted in the Canadian province of Ontario, the article looks at the factors that influence claiming and seeking legal assistance. The overall patterns indicate that residents of Ontario are somewhat less likely to claim but more likely to seek legal assistance than are residents of the United States. Moreover, while cultural variations (e.g., religion, type of residence) are good predictors of claiming in Ontario, these factors have little influence on claiming in the United States. As for seeking legal assistance, few predictors are found to influence behavior in the United States while a variety of factors (community size, type of problem, stakes, gender, and education) influence behavior in Ontario.

Corruption and Political Culture in America: An Empirical Perspective*

Political culture helps define the boundaries of permissible political action. Thus, it should affect the amounts and types of political corruption occurring in political systems, as well as responses to corruption when it is discovered. This article compares the distribution of corruption convictions among federal judicial districts over a three-year period to social and political characteristics of the districts, and to scaled measures of Elazar's moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic political subcultures. Nationally, strong moralistic subcultures and high voter turnouts are associated with numerous convictions, both before and after district population is controlled. Analysis of regional patterns reveals a different model in the South, however, one suggesting ideas about the dynamics of traditionalistic politics. Corruption, and the impact of federal laws against it, are best understood within their political and cultural settings.

Legal Problems of Dividing a State between Federal Judicial Circuits

At recent hearings on proposals to restructure the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, two witnesses (a Ninth Circuit judge and a law professor) expressed some support for a realignment that would divide the state of California between two judicial circuits. This article explores the legal problems that might arise if such a reorganization were to be enacted, and it considers how those problems might be dealt with. It concludes that the problems are far from intractable and that they can be addressed through use or adaptation of familiar mechanisms for avoiding or resolving conflicts between decisions of different courts. Almost 50 years ago, the Commission on Revision of the Federal Court Appellate System (Hruska Commission) recommended that the two largest federal judicial circuits of that era – the Fifth and the Ninth – should each be divided into two new circuits. The Fifth Circuit was then composed of six states, three on the east and three on the west, with approximately equal caseloads. The Commission recommended a three-three split, and six years later Congress enacted legislation implementing the proposed realignment. The Ninth Circuit was a tougher nut to crack. The Ninth Circuit is composed of nine states, but one of those states is California. Then as now, California accounted for about two-thirds of the Ninth Circuit’s caseload. And the Commission was adamant in rejecting the idea of putting California in a circuit by itself. “The creation of … a one-state circuit,” the Commission said, “invites the loss of important elements of our federalism.” Among other things, “[t]here is reason to believe that judges from different states reinforce one another’s perceptions that they are judges of a national court.” Instead, the Commission recommended that Congress divide the Ninth Circuit into two new circuits with the boundaries drawn so that two of the federal judicial districts of California would be placed in a southern circuit (with Arizona and Nevada), and two in a northern circuit (with Hawaii and the northwestern states). Although a bill was introduced in Congress to implement the recommendation, it did not go far. Since then, attention has focused on other proposed realignments, in large part because the idea of dividing California between circuits has generated intense opposition from California’s legal and political community. The idea has not disappeared from view, however, and for good reason. The Hruska Commission was on sound ground in arguing that a one-state circuit would be at a severe disadvantage in performing the functions of a national appellate court. Indeed, a later study group, the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals (White Commission) went further, concluding that three states are “the minimum necessary for units of the intermediate tier of a federal system to serve an appropriate federalizing function.” No realignment that satisfies the White Commission’s criterion would come as close as the Hruska Commission’s proposal to an equal division of caseload between the two new circuits. The question, then, is whether the concerns underlying opposition to the Hruska Commission proposal justify excluding it from consideration. The detailed analysis in this article, based on a memorandum written for the Commission, suggests that the answer is “No.” Two classes of cases have loomed large in discussions of the Commission proposal: diversity cases and cases involving challenges to the validity of a California state statute or regulation. With respect to the first, the article finds that notwithstanding the attention paid to diversity cases, dividing California between circuits would have little effect on the litigation of state-law claims. Suits challenging the validity of state laws do present potential problems, but several mechanisms are available to avoid or resolve conflicts between decisions of the northern and southern circuits. These include transfers under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) or § 1407 (the multi-district litigation statute) and review by a limited en banc panel similar to the one used by the Ninth Circuit today, but drawn from judges from both of the new circuits. A recurring theme in the analysis is that none of the conflicts likely to arise in the divided-state situation are unique. A judicial system that can handle the delicate problems raised by federal injunctions against state-court proceedings and the logistical problems raised by multitudinous suits in related antitrust cases should be equal to the task of preserving harmony between two federal appellate courts sitting within one state.