Judging under the spotlight: Analyzing the effects of public opinion on judicial decisions in sexual violence cases

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of public opinion on judicial decisions; unlike politicians judges do not have to be held accountable if citizens dislike their decisions. However, previous literature has found that political environments in specific moments can bring judges to make more ideological decisions triggered by the pressure of public opinion. While these studies have predominantly focused on high and politicized courts, this paper fills a gap by researching the role of public opinion in less politicized courts such as intermediate courts. I argue that judges in this setting, where their incentives are not tied to ideology or politics, still have motivations to respond to public demands. The analysis uses a newly built dataset of approximately 11,000 judicial rulings on sexual violence and theft cases from 2015 to 2020. Employing several difference-in-difference models, the findings indicate that judges respond to both the salience of the Manada case and the overturn of the Supreme Court by increasing the prosecution of sexual violence offenses.