Judges’ decisions are influenced by time of day and breaks, with favorable rulings peaking early and after lunch. Other factors like crime severity and gender had no effect.
In a court of law, justice should be objective and impartial. But judges are human beings and are susceptible to the ebb and flow of daily life, both inside and outside the courtroom. To see if there was a discernible pattern in the court rulings, the researchers looked at 1,112 probation board hearings in Israel presided over by eight different judges during a 10-month period in 2009. What they found was dramatic. The research showed that the probability of a favorable ruling peaked early in the court day, starting at 65% and then dropping to zero. After a break for lunch or a snack, the judges regranted probation about 65 percent of the time, and then increasingly denied the petitioners’ probation requests as the day wore on.
Here is the judge:
The only other variables that influenced a judge’s decision were how many times a petitioner had been in prison and whether he had participated in a rehabilitation program.
Other factors – such as the seriousness of the prisoner’s crime, the time he had already spent in prison, and the prisoner’s gender or ethnicity – did not appear to have any effect on the sentences, one way or the other.
The researchers did not draw any conclusions as to why the judges were much more lenient in the morning and after lunch and snack breaks, other than to indicate “rest, improved mood or (…) increased glucose levels in the body”.
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