Judging Under #MeToo: Gender Effects and Judicial Decision-Making in Criminal Cases

Abstract

Is it possible that personal traits such as race, gender, and ideology impact how judges make their judicial decisions? Our objective in this paper is to understand how judges’ gender affects the judicial decision-making process in criminal cases in which a woman is a victim. We also investigate whether some external events and elements change the manner judges make decisions on criminal issues. We employ a linear probability model and use a time milestone: the beginning of the #MeToo movement. Our database consists of more than 2 million criminal cases that were judged by circuit court judges (1st instance) from 2011 to 2024 at the State Court of São Paulo, the largest court in Brazil. Our results show that the probability of being convicted by a female judge is greater than with a male one but, perhaps surprisingly, that female judges are not more likely to convict in gender-related cases. Furthermore, we found differences in the judgment of gender-sensitive crimes before and after the “#MeToo” movement.