Miscarriages of justice in judges’ mind: theory and experimental evidence

Abstract This study investigates—both theoretically and by means of a controlled laboratory experiment—judges’ decisions in cases when either “type-I” errors (i.e., convicting an innocent defendant) or “type-II” errors (i.e., acquitting a guilty defendant) can occur. Our findings indicate that judges are sensitive to both types of error. Furthermore, in both error scenarios we detect “compensatory leniency” in judicial decision making, with participants seeming to balance the inherent trade-off between the errors by managing jointly the two key levers that they are given by our design: (1) the decision on conviction/acquittal and (2) the decision on the severity of punishment.