Latino Judges on the Federal District Court: ¿Cómo Deciden?

Abstract

As the Latino population in the United States grows, it is increasingly important to understand how the unique experience of Latino judges translates into legal decisions. This experience has included, until recently, a bipartisan prioritization to appoint Latinos to the federal judiciary. For the first time, we analyze the judicial decision-making of Latino judges with enough observations to provide robust results. We find that the differences in priorities between the two parties have typically meant more conservative Latino judges on the bench. Using the Carp-Manning U.S. District Court Case Database, we analyze the decisions of Latino judges to determine policy areas where they diverge from their non-Latino counterparts. We find strong evidence that, under certain partisan, ideological, and policy-specific conditions, Latino judges decide differently than non-Latino judges.