Trial court judges play a crucial role in the administration of justice for both criminal and civil matters. Although psychologists have studied juries for many decades they have given relatively little attention to judges. Recent writings, however, suggest increasing interest in the psychology of judicial decision making. This essay reviews several selected topics where judicial discretion app...

Conventional wisdom holds that appointed judges are superior to elected judges because appointed judges are less vulnerable to political pressure. However, there is little empirical evidence for this view. Using a data set of state high court opinions, we construct measures for three aspects of judicial performance: effort, skill, and independence. The measures permit a test of the relationship...

The Supreme Court's Daubert trilogy places judges in the unenviable position of assessing the reliability of often unfamiliar and complex scientific expert testimony. Over the past decade, scholars have therefore explored various ways of helping judges with their new gatekeeping responsibilities. Unfortunately, the two dominant approaches, which focus on doctrinal tests and external assistance ...