The "Halo Effect" in Criminal Court: The Effect of Defendant Attractiveness on Judicial Departures from Sentencing Guidelines

• In Event: Innovative Scopes of Race in Sentencing Decisions

Abstract

Criminal court judges wield great decision-making power in the criminal justice system and are expected to pass judgments fairly and equably. Still, inter-judge disparities in sentencing outcomes due to extralegal factors are well-documented. While the effects of characteristics such as race and gender have been studied extensively, less understood are the varying effects of other appearance characteristics such as defendant attractiveness. The present study evaluates alternative measures of defendant attractiveness and assesses their impact on judicial departures from sentencing guidelines in a large sample of male offenders from two Midwestern counties.

Authors

• Brian Johnson, University of Maryland

• Ryan King, Ohio State University