Author Archive | Andy Leipold

Thanks to everyone who slogged through the last four days of posts about judicial acquittals. The comments were extremely helpful to my ongoing thinking about the topic; I appreciate that so many took time to offer their insights. Thanks also to Eugene for inviting me. Hope to do it again sometime. Best, Andy

Yesterday there were more very helpful posts and emails in response to the puzzle of why federal judges are much more likely to acquit than juries, and why the gap grew between 1989 and 2002. Today I will offer some tentative conclusions on what the data reveal, and respond to a couple of comments. I […]

Those who have been kind enough to follow the posts over the last two days have seen some terrific comments and questions about why federal judges are statistically more likely to acquit in criminal cases than juries are. Here are a few more findings, and then a couple of observations on the comments (The full […]

Wow. Some very thoughtful and perceptive comments were posted yesterday on the basic question of why federal judges are more likely to acquit than federal juries. This is fun. Let me pick up on a few of the points that people raised in their posts, to show what the data revealed. These figures are based […]

Many thanks to Eugene for inviting me to make some comments on some recent research. A few years ago I noticed in the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics that federal defendants who stand trial are much more likely to be acquitted in a bench trial than by a jury. This seemed odd to me – […]