CITY & JUVENILE JUDGES SEMINAR January 19-20, 2017

Hotel InterContinental ∙ New Orleans

PROFESSIONALISM: TEAMWORK, HEALTH,

AND FACING ADVERSITY

JUDGE PAUL A. BONIN Orleans Parish Criminal District Court JAKE DELHOMME Former NFL Quarterback

In NFL as on the Hill, Teamwork Rules the Plays Long Hours, Changing Plays And Time Management Are Familiar to Members Who Once Played Pro Football Posted Jun 27, 2011 1:04 PM Alexandra Jaffe @Alexandra Jaffe

“Forget about it, it’s over with. The play’s changing in 40 seconds.”

Stacy Palmer-Barton, Rep. Jon Runyan’s chief of staff, had come into the New Jersey Republican’s office upset about a mistake that had been made. She found her boss spouting sports terms when she wanted legislative answers.

“What do you mean?” she asked, confused.

But his cryptic reference to “changing plays” had more relevance to policymaking than Palmer-Barton realized. Runyan, the 6-foot-7-inch former offensive lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles, knew from his 14 years of playing professional football that it doesn’t help to dwell on the things you’ve done wrong.

“There’s a play clock on the wall,” he told her. “We’ve got to admit [our mistake], correct it and move on. Otherwise, we’re not going to be very effective.”

Play clocks and playbooks, teamwork and time management, the stamina to walk miles through the Capitol complex: All of these necessities for Members of Congress are skills that Runyan and Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), the two current Members who once played professional football, cultivated during their previous careers.

Congress seems to attract folks with connections to football. Rep. Norm Dicks (D), who played for the University of Washington, currently represents Washington’s 6th district, and former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), son of Hall of Fame inductee and then-Los Angeles Rams coach George Allen, is running for Senate again in 2012.

Perhaps that’s because although a touchdown might not mean the same thing in Congress as it does on Lincoln Financial Field, where the Eagles play, Runyan and Shuler said the two occupations are remarkably similar. At the foundation of both professional football and Congress is an emphasis on teamwork.

Despite whatever differences might exist on both sides of the aisle, Shuler, who was quarterback for the Washington Redskins and the New Orleans Saints, said a love of the country binds all Members of Congress together into a team.

“Democrats, Republicans — at the end of the day we’re all on the same team. We’re all Americans,” he said.

As in football, differences can get the best of the players. Runyan said he’s seen divisions arise and impede progress in Congress the same way they used to on the field. “I’ve seen the breakdowns, the segregations, the people being individuals,” he said. But in Congress and during the game, “there are sacrifices that you take for the betterment of the team.”

One of those sacrifices is time. With practices lasting morning until night, hours spent in the film room going over plays and hectic travel schedules, the NFL is more than a full-time job. The time commitment required of Members of Congress is similar, but the days are decidedly less focused.

“I’m coming from my past career where everything is so structured and disciplined, where this, sometimes your schedule will change four times in a day,” Runyan said.

And because Members’ days are so busy and apt to change, time with the “team” often can be pushed to the back burner.

“In the NFL, when something had to be done at 10 o’clock, that means you were there 10 minutes till,” Shuler said. “Here, it may be 10:45 before everyone gets here and they’re prepared to work, and then they leave at 10:55.”

Despite their hectic schedules, lawmakers are expected to spend their own time reading up on current issues and legislative reports. Runyan said he spends time each week icing his injured knee — one of the reasons he no longer plays — and catching up on his reading.

He sees the Constitution as his playbook, something that needs to be studied each week to play the game successfully.

“Every single week you pick it up and you study it,” he said. “How is it going to apply to this piece of legislation? How is this play going to apply to this defensive front you’re running against?”

And, as Shuler explains it, if you call the wrong play, it can hurt you on the field and at the ballot box.

“Not getting the right call, in both instances, can cost you,” he said. “You vote wrong, you get ousted, and if you don’t make the right call in football, or the right play, then you get ousted — the difference being just going home and a guy 300 pounds sending you home.”

That studying, though, is nothing new for the former NFL players. Shuler said he used to spend hours analyzing game film, focusing on what he could do better during the next game. And the stereotype that football players are just mindless athletes is something Runyan said he’s encountered and tried to dispel.

“I don’t think most people realize the amount of brainpower it takes to play football,” he said. “It is very technical, and it is very strategic. There’s a lot of planning that goes into it.”

Playing in the NFL also prepared these Members for negative attention.

Although nobody’s heckling from the House Gallery, lawmakers are subject to constant criticism in the same way a professional football player is. Runyan said his experience with public backlash during his football career prepared both him and his family for Congress.

“The negative aspect that people are trying to drive home and demean you and break you down, that’s in both” Congress and the NFL, Runyan said. “You’re constantly getting attacked.”

But the ridicule, the long hours and the hard work don’t make the time in Congress any less worthwhile than the time in the NFL. Asked what his favorite moments in both careers are, Shuler named his team’s 1995 win against the Dallas Cowboys, one of the Redskins’ biggest rivals, and getting sworn in by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

But the sentiment that made each memory so sweet was the same.

“You set your mind to do something, and you can do it,” Shuler said.

- See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/in_nfl_as_on_the_hill_teamwork_rules_the_plays-206823-1.html#sthash.reKIqwFD.dpuf

Extraneous factors in judicial decisionsShai Danzigera,1, Jonathan Levavb,1,2, and Liora Avnaim-Pessoa

aDepartment of Management, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel; and bColumbia Business School, Columbia University, New York,NY 10027

Edited* by Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved February 25, 2011 (received for review December 8, 2010)

Are judicial rulings based solely on laws and facts? Legal formalismholds that judges apply legal reasons to the facts of a case in a ra-tional, mechanical, and deliberative manner. In contrast, legal real-ists argue that the rational application of legal reasons does notsufficiently explain the decisions of judges and that psychological,political, and social factors influence judicial rulings. We test thecommon caricature of realism that justice is “what the judge atefor breakfast” in sequential parole decisions made by experiencedjudges.We record the judges’ twodaily food breaks,which result insegmenting the deliberations of the day into three distinct “deci-sion sessions.” We find that the percentage of favorable rulingsdrops gradually from ≈65% to nearly zero within each decisionsession and returns abruptly to ≈65% after a break. Our findingssuggest that judicial rulings can be swayed by extraneous variablesthat should have no bearing on legal decisions.

decisionmaking | legal realism | mental depletion | expertdecisionmaking | ego depletion

Does the outcome of legal cases depend solely on laws andfacts? Legal formalism holds that judges apply legal reasons to

the facts of a case in a rational, mechanical, and deliberativemanner (1, 2). An alternative view of the law—encapsulated in thehighly influential 20th century legal realist movement—is rooted inthe observation of US Supreme Court Justice Oliver WendellHolmes that “the life of the law has not been logic; it has beenexperience” (3). Realists argue that the rational application oflegal reasons does not sufficiently explain judicial decisions andthat psychological, political, and social factors influence rulings aswell (4). The realist view is commonly caricaturized by the tropethat justice is “what the judge ate for breakfast” (5).We empiricallytest this caricature in the context of sequences of parole decisionsmade by experienced judges (mean experience= 22.5 y, SD= 2.5)and, in so doing, demonstrate how extraneous factors can swayhighly consequential decisions of expert decision makers.Prior research suggests that making repeated judgments or deci-

sions depletes individuals’ executive function and mental resources(6), which can, in turn, influence their subsequent decisions. Forinstance, sequential choices between consumer goods can lead to anincrease in intuitive decisionmaking (7) as well as a reduced toler-ance for pain in a subsequent task (8). Sequential choices and theapparent mental depletion that they evoke also increase people’stendency to simplify decisions by accepting the status quo. Germancar buyers, for instance, were more likely to accept the default at-tribute level offered by a manufacturer later in a sequence of attri-bute decisions than earlier, particularly when these choices followeddecisions betweenmany alternatives that had required more mentalresources to evaluate (9). These studies hint that making repeatedrulings can increase the likelihood of judges to simplify their deci-sions. We speculate that as judges advance through the sequence ofcases (whoseorder appears to be exogenously determined; seebelowfor a detailed discussion), they will be more likely to accept the de-fault, status quo outcome: deny a prisoner’s request.

Materials and MethodsOur data consist of 1,112 judicial rulings, collected over 50 d in a 10-moperiod, by eight Jewish-Israeli judges (two females) who preside over twodifferent parole boards that serve four major prisons in Israel. Our prisonersample consisted of 727 Jewish-Israeli males (65.3%), 326 Arab-Israeli males

(29.3%), 50 Jewish-Israeli females (4.5%), and 9 Arab-Israeli females (0.9%).The two parole boards process ∼40% of all parole requests in the country.The prisons house felons convicted of crimes such as embezzlement, assault,theft, murder, and rape. Each parole board is composed of one judge, aswell as a criminologist and a social worker who provide the judge withprofessional advice. For each day we obtained the entire set of rulings. Themajority of the decisions in our sample (78.2%) consist of parole requests;the remainder consist of parolee requests to change the terms of their pa-role (e.g., a request to remove a tracking device) or requests by parolecandidates to change the terms of their incarceration (e.g., a request forprison relocation). Our database includes the legal variables that appear inthe case file: number of previous incarcerations, gravity of crime committed,months served, and whether a rehabilitation program would be availableshould the prisoner be granted parole (98.3% of prisoners had such a pro-gram in place). [A judge with 40 years of experience on the bench, twocriminal attorneys, and two prison wardens with 10 years experience servingon the parole board, independently ordered the gravity of offense for the 7classes of crimes committed. Ordering was identical for the five experts, andranged from misdemeanor (1) to felony (7).] The judge was not providedthese details in advance; the information was provided by a clerk only whenthe prisoner (and his or her attorney) appeared before the parole board.Every day a judge considered 14–35 cases (see SI Materials and Methods, S1for details) in succession (M = 22.58, SD = 4.67), and each case deliberationlasted ≈6 min (M = 5.98, SD = 5.13, Max = 40.00). Our data include the timeof day in which the prisoner’s request was considered and its ordinal posi-tion in the sequence of decisions for that day.

Executive function canbe restoredandmental fatigueovercome, inpart, byinterventions suchasviewingscenesofnature(10), short rest (11), experiencingpositive mood (12), and increasing glucose levels in the body (ref. 13; fora review see ref. 14). In our data, we record the two daily food breaks that thejudge takes—a late morning snack and lunch—which serve to break up theday’s deliberations into three distinct “decision sessions.” Such a break mayreplenish mental resources by providing rest, improving mood, or by in-creasing glucose levels in the body. Themeal is typically served to the judge atthe bench and its timing, which is determined by the judge, varies by day. Inour sample, the start time of the morning food break ranged between 9:49and 10:27 AM (snack consisting of a sandwich and fruit) and lasted an averageof 38.48 min (SD = 20.50, min = 6, max = 106); the start time of the afternoon(lunch) break ranged between 12:46 and 2:10 PM and lasted an average of57.37 min (SD = 22.00, min = 15, max = 110). The breaks were taken after anaverage of 7.8 cases (SD = 4.51, min = 2, max = 28) in the morning session and11.4 cases (SD = 5.14, min = 2, max = 25) in the postsnack/prelunch session.Thus, our data enable us to test the effect of the ordinal position of a case onthe judge’s decision and the effect of the judge having taken a break to eat.

The judges’ decisions are classified into two categories, “accept request”and “reject request.” Under the reject category, we include both finalrejections as well as rejections that include a stipulation for review at a laterdate (such delay decisions constitute 48.4% of the reject category). On av-erage, such reviews occur ≈1 mo after the initial parole board review. Thus,a decision to delay effectively maintains the status quo for the prisoner.Overall, 64.2% of prisoner requests in our sample were rejected.

Author contributions: S.D., J.L., and L.A.-P. designed research; S.D., J.L., and L.A.-P. per-formed research; J.L. analyzed data; and S.D. and J.L. wrote the paper.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.1S.D. and J.L. contributed equally to this work.2To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jl2351@columbia.edu.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1018033108/-/DCSupplemental.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018033108 PNAS | April 26, 2011 | vol. 108 | no. 17 | 6889–6892

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ResultsWe find that the likelihood of a favorable ruling is greater at thevery beginning of the work day or after a food break than later inthe sequence of cases. This pattern is readily evident in Fig. 1,which plots the proportion of favorable rulings by ordinal positionfor 95% of the observations in each decision session. The plotshows that the likelihood of a ruling in favor of a prisoner spikes atthe beginning of each session—the probability of a favorableruling steadily declines from ≈0.65 to nearly zero and jumps backup to ≈0.65 after a break for a meal. Fig. 2 A and B presentsa histogram of the probability of a favorable ruling for cases ofsimilar legal characteristics that appeared in one of the threeordinal positions at the beginning versus at the end of a decisionsession; from the perspective of the prisoner, there is a clearadvantage to appearing at the beginning of the session (i.e., eitherat the beginning of the day or immediately following the break).To account for the possible role of covariates in the patterns

depicted in Figs. 1 and 2, we used a logistic regression with rulingsas the dependent variable and a judge-specific fixed effect tocontrol for the idiosyncratic tendencies of each judge (Table 1).The key predictors were several different indicators of a case’sordinal position: (i) dummy variables indicating the first threecases in a session, included to examine how judgments immediatelyafter a break differ from those that preceded or succeeded them;(ii) dummies indicating in which of the three daily sessions the casehad appeared; and (iii) two types of ordinal position counters (oneindicating the ordinal position within the session and the otherindicating the ordinal position within the day, each used in a dif-ferent regression specification). The covariates included all of thelegal attributes of the case that were available in the case file (se-verity of crime, months served, previous incarcerations, and re-habilitation program), prisoner demographics (sex, nationality),and the proportion of favorable rulings to that point in the day. Thepurpose of the latter was to control for the possibility that thejudges have a daily “quota” of favorable decisions that they expectto render, which, once filled, are followed by unfavorable decisions.The positive sign and significance of the dummy variables in-

dicating the first three cases in each session confirms that thepattern in Fig. 1 holds even while controlling for the legalattributes of the case and for the overall tendency of the judges torule against the prisoner as the number of cases before themmounts (i.e., the main effect of making repeated decisions). Theresults are nearly identical when we restrict our analysis only toparole requests (Table S1) and in analyses where we drop the twomost frequently occurring judges (Table S2) and each of thejudges in our sample (Tables S3–S10). In addition, a plot similar

to Fig. 2 for each judge shows that every judge in our sample wasmore likely to rule in favor of a prisoner at the beginning ofa session than at the end of a session (Fig. S1). Nested model testsindicate that adding the ordinal position variables leads to bettermodel fit (Table S11). Therefore, although our data do not allowus to test directly whether justice is what the judge had forbreakfast, they do suggest that judicial decisions can be influencedby whether the judge took a break to eat.We conducted an additional analysis to test the statistical ro-

bustness of the linear trend that is apparent between breaks in Fig.1; regardless of the ordinal position counter we used, the trendwas significant and negative (Table S12). We also conducted ananalysis using cumulative minutes elapsed in a session in lieu ofthe ordinal position dummies as a predictor, as well as our controlvariables. Cumulative minutes serve as a proxy for mental fatigueamong the judges. Similar to the results presented in Table 1, thisanalysis shows that as cumulative time within a session increases,the likelihood of a favorable ruling decreases (Table S13 and Fig.S2). However, note that in an analysis that included both thecumulative minutes variable and the ordinal position counter,only the latter was significant (Table S14). This analysis hints thatthe apparent depletion exhibited by the judges is due to the act ofmaking decisions rather than simply elapsed time (this in-terpretation should be viewed in light of the high correlationbetween cumulative minutes and ordinal position, r = 0.72, P <0.0001). Two indicators support our view that rejecting requests isan easier decision—and, thus, a more likely outcome—whenjudges are mentally depleted: (i) favorable rulings took signifi-cantly longer (M= 7.37 min, SD = 5.11) than unfavorable rulings(M= 5.21, SD = 4.97), t= 6.86, P < 0.01, and (ii) written verdicts

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Fig. 1. Proportion of rulings in favor of the prisoners by ordinal position.Circled points indicate the first decision in each of the three decision ses-sions; tick marks on x axis denote every third case; dotted line denotes foodbreak. Because unequal session lengths resulted in a low number of cases forsome of the later ordinal positions, the graph is based on the first 95% of thedata from each session.

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Fig. 2. Proportion of favorable decisions for male felons with a rehabilitationprogram as a function of ordinal position, months served, and previous incar-cerations. These histograms reflect the first three versus the last three decisionscollapsed over the three decisions sessions. They are for illustrative purposesandare basedona subsample of the data. Plus signs (+) indicate cell sizes of<20.(A) Data for prisoners with no previous incarcerations. (B) Data for prisonerswith one previous incarceration. Asterisks indicate results of a difference be-tween proportions test. *P < 0.1, **P < 0.05, ***P < 0.01.

6890 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018033108 Danziger et al.

of favorable rulings were significantly longer (M = 89.61 words,SD = 65.46) than written verdicts of unfavorable rulings (M =47.36 words, SD = 43.99), t = 12.82, P < 0.01.Of the legally relevant control variables entered in the regres-

sions, only the prior number of incarcerations of the prisoner andthe presence of a rehabilitation program consistently exerted astatistically significant influence on the judges’ rulings. Prisonerswho displayed a tendency toward recidivism were less likely toreceive favorable judgments, as were prisoners who lacked aplanned rehabilitation program. The severity of the prisoner’scrime and prison time served tended not to exert an effect on

rulings, nor did sex and ethnicity. The lack of a significant effect ofprisoner ethnicity indicates that the Jewish-Israeli judges in oursample treated prisoners equally regardless of ethnicity. Althoughprevious research does hint at the presence of effects of prisoners’and judges’ race on sentencing decisions, in some cases, as in ours,such effects are weak or absent (15–18).A key aspect for interpreting the association between the or-

dinal position of a case and parole decisions is whether an un-observed factor determines case order in such a way that yields thepattern of results we obtain. For instance, if prisoners withouta rehabilitation program or recidivists were somehow more likely

Table 1. Results of analysis using dummies for the first three decisions in a session

Specification

Variable 1 2 3 4

Overall decision count −0.078*** (0.020) — −0.080*** (0.021) —

Overall count including nondecisions — −0.111*** (0.018) — −0.111*** (0.019)Session 1/decision 1 0.850** (0.377) 0.670* (0.370) — —

Session 1/decision 2 1.366*** (0.383) 1.236*** (0.381) 1.409*** (0.387) 1.268*** (0.383)Session 1/decision 3 0.374 (0.351) 0.270 (0.351) 0.336 (0.354) 0.261 (0.353)Session 2/decision 1 1.055*** (0.355) 0.789** (0.359) 1.064*** (0.358) 0.809** (0.362)Session 2/decision 2 0.259 (0.337) 0.042 (0.341) 0.221 (0.339) 0.026 (0.343)Session 2/decision 3 0.761** (0.337) 0.592* (0.339) 0.735** (0.339) 0.583* (0.340)Session 3/decision 1 2.873*** (0.425) 2.677*** (0.431) 2.805*** (0.425) 2.642*** (0.431)Session 3/decision 2 0.888** (0.453) 0.677 (0.460) 0.818* (0.456) 0.644 (0.462)Session 3/decision 3 −0.340 (0.660) −0.520 (0.666) −0.410 (0.662) −0.555 (0.667)Session 1 −0.341 (0.247) −0.788*** (0.263) −0.478* (0.253) −0.874*** (0.265)Session 3 −1.064*** (0.321) −0.608* (0.334) −0.943*** (0.326) −0.542 (0.338)Severity of offense 0.051 (0.096) 0.068 (0.097) 0.018 (0.099) 0.039 (0.101)Previous imprisonments −0.241*** (0.059) −0.234*** (0.059) −0.228*** (0.061) −0.222*** (0.062)Months served −0.004 (0.003) −0.004 (0.003) −0.004 (0.003) −0.004 (0.003)Rehabilitation program 2.465*** (0.809) 2.415*** (0.825) 1.974** (0.845) 1.907** (0.862)Ethnicity (0 = Jew, 1 = Arab) −0.204 (0.156) −0.227 (0.157) −0.177 (0.160) −0.198 (0.161)Sex (0 = male, 1 = female) −0.201 (0.299) −0.218 (0.301) −0.158 (0.305) −0.172 (0.307)Proportion favorable decisions — — 0.937*** (0.333) 0.631* (0.339)−2 Log likelihood 1135.215 1110.609 1067.232 1045.706

This table presents various fixed effects logistic regression specifications. The session x/decision y parameters are dummy variablesthat indicate the first three decisions in each of the three sessions. Note that in specifications 3 and 4 there is no value for the very firstdecision of the day because the regression includes a term for proportion of favorable decisions, which requires there to have been atleast one other decision that day. Ethnicity and sex are dummy variables. SEs appear in parentheses. *P < 0.10, **P < 0.05, ***P < 0.01.

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C DFig. 3. Mean level of control variables by ordinal position.Circled points indicate the first decision in each of the threesessions; tick marks on x axis denote every third case; dottedlines denote food break. (A) Data for gravity of offense. (B)Data for previous incarcerations. (C) Data for months served.(D) Data reflecting the proportion of prisoners with a re-habilitation program. Because unequal session lengths resul-ted in a low number of cases for some of the later ordinalpositions, the graphs are based on the first 95% of the datafrom each session.

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to appear before a food break, we would naturally find a greaterproportion of rejections occurring before the food break as well.A number of procedural factors preclude this possibility.First and most critically, the judge both determines when the

break will occur during the course of the day’s proceedings and isunaware of the details of the upcoming cases. Thus, the judgecannot decide when to take a break based on information relatedto the nature of the upcoming cases. So, in the example above,a judge cannot decide to take a break because he or she knows thatprisoners after the break will have no previous incarceration re-cord. Relatedly, the type of case (e.g., severity of the crime) thatthe judge had just ruled on exerted no significant effect on thelikelihood of taking a break (Table S15). Furthermore, the largevariability in break start times and durations attests to the fact thattheir occurrence would be nearly impossible to predict by any ofthe prison staff involved in the parole proceedings.Second, the ordinal position of cases is, with rare exception,

determined by the arrival time of the prisoner’s attorney. Theattorneys are sequestered in a room where they are unable to viewthe proceedings of the board and, therefore, are unaware of any ofthe rulings of the judge, how many prisoners preceded their cli-ent’s case, or when and whether the food break occurred (afterthe board’s deliberations, attorneys exit through a different door).Thus, by design they cannot learn about the advantage ofappearing after a break. Indeed, a survey administered to a sam-ple of these attorneys after the primary data collection periodindicated that they were unaware of the effect of ordinal positionon rulings (see SI Materials and Methods, S2 for details). A similarsurvey administered to parole board members (judges, criminol-ogists, and social workers) revealed the same results (see SIMaterials and Methods, S3 for details).Because of the factors discussed above, we did not expect sig-

nificant correlations between ordinal position within either the dayor the session and the control variables in our data (SI MaterialsandMethods, S4 and Table S16). Consistent with our expectations,there does not appear to be a deliberate ordering based on thecharacteristics of the prisoners (Fig. 3 A–D and SI Materials andMethods, S4); certainly there appears to be no effect of a foodbreak on the type of prisoner appearing before the judge.Note thatalthough there was a slight but significant correlation betweenrecidivism and ordinal position in the day, this correlation was notsignificant within a decision session, i.e., between breaks. Thus, itcannot explain the spikes in favorable decisions after breaks.Another factor that can plausibly explain our effect is that

judgesmight have a certain proportion of decisions that they expect

to be favorable, and once this “quota” isfilled, then unfavorable de-cisions follow. As we explain earlier, we tested this possibility em-pirically by including a variable that computed the proportion offavorabledecisionsup to thatpoint in theday (Table1, specifications3 and 4). Regardless of the analysis we conducted, the parameterestimate was positive and significant, suggesting that a judge whomade a large proportion of favorable rulings up to a certain pointwas, in fact, more likely to rule favorably in a subsequent case.

DiscussionWe have presented evidence suggesting that when judges makerepeated rulings, they showan increased tendency to rule in favor ofthe status quo. This tendency can be overcome by taking a break toeat a meal, consistent with previous research demonstrating theeffects of a short rest, positive mood, and glucose on mental re-source replenishment (11–13). However, we cannot unequivocallydetermine whether simply resting or eating restores the judges’mental resources because each of the breaks was taken for thepurpose of eating a meal. We also cannot ascertain whether takinga break improved the judges’ mood because mood was not mea-sured in our study. Furthermore, although we interpret our findingsthrough the lens of mental depletion, we do not have a directmeasure of the judges’ mental resources and, thus, cannot assesswhether these change over time. Nevertheless, our results do in-dicate that extraneous variables can influence judicial decisions,which bolsters the growing body of evidence that points to the sus-ceptibility of experienced judges to psychological biases (19, 20; fora review, see ref. 21). Finally, our findings support the view that thelaw is indeterminate by showing that legally irrelevant situationaldeterminants—in this case, merely taking a food break—may leada judge to rule differently in cases with similar legal characteristics.Although our focus has been on expert legal decisions, we sus-

pect the presence of other forms of decision simplification strate-gies for experts in other important sequential decisions or judg-ments, such as legislative decisions, medical decisions, financialdecisions, and university admissions decisions. Our findings add tothe literature that documents how experts are not immune to theinfluence of extraneous irrelevant information (22–24). Indeed, thecaricature that justice is what the judge ate for breakfast might bean appropriate caricature for human decisionmaking in general.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Jim Bettman, Brett Gordon, Michael Heller,Eric Johnson, Daniel Kahneman, Itzhak Levav, Orly Lobel, Oded Netzer, JeffRachlinski, Derek Rucker, Uri Simonsohn, Richard Thaler, and AndrewWistrich for comments.

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3. Holmes OW (1881) The Common Law (Little, Brown, Boston).4. Frank J (1930) Law and the Modern Mind (Brentano’s, New York).5. Kozinski A (1993) What I ate for breakfast and other mysteries of judicial decision

making. Loyola LA L Rev 26:993.6. Muraven M, Baumeister RF (2000) Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources:

Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychol Bull 126:247–259.7. Pocheptsova A, Amir O, Dhar R, Baumeister RF (2009) Deciding without resources:

Resource depletion and choice in context. J Mkt Res 46:344–355.8. Vohs KD, et al. (2008) Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: A limited-

resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative. J Pers SocPsychol 94:883–898.

9. Levav J, Heitmann H, Herrmann A, Iyengar SS (2010) Order in product customizationdecisions: Evidence from field experiments. J Polit Econ 118:274–299.

10. Kaplan R, Kaplan S (1989) The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective(Cambridge Univ Press, New York).

11. Tyler JM, Burns KC (2008) After depletion: The replenishment of the self’s regulatoryresources. Self Ident 7:305–321.

12. Tice DM, Baumeister RF, Shmueli D, MuravenM (2007) Restoring the self: Positive affecthelps improve self-regulation following ego depletion. J Exp Soc Psychol 43:379–384.

13. Gailliot MT, Baumeister RF (2007) The physiology of willpower: Linking blood glucoseto self-control. Pers Soc Psychol Rev 11:303–327.

14. Hagger MS, Wood C, Stiff C, Chatzisarantis NLD (2010) Ego depletion and thestrength model of self-control: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull 136:495–525.

15. Steffensmeier D, Britt CL (2001) Judges’race and judicial decision making: Do blackjudges sentence differently. Soc Sci Q 82:749–764.

16. Gazal-Eyal O, Sulitzeanu-Kenan R (2010) Let my people go: Ethnic in-group bias injudicial decisions-Evidence from a randomized natural experiment. Journal of EmpirLeg Stud 7:403–428.

17. Blair IV, Judd CM, Chapleau KM (2004) The influence of Afrocentric facial features incriminal sentencing. Psychol Sci 15:674–679.

18. Spohn C.C (2000) Criminal Justice 2000: Vol. 3. Policies, Processes, and Decisions ofthe Criminal Justice System, ed Horney J (US Department of Justice, Washington, DC),pp 427–501.

19. Guthrie C, Rachlinski JJ, Wistrich AJ (2001) Inside the judicial mind. Cornell Law Rev86:777–830.

20. Guthrie C, Rachlinski JJ, Wistrich AJ (2007) Blinking on the bench: How judges decidecases. Cornell Law Rev 93:1–44.

21. Vidmar N (2011) The psychology of trial judging. Curr Dir Psychol Sci 20:58–62.22. Northcraft GB, Neale MA (1987) Experts, amateurs, and real estate: An anchoring-

and-adjustment perspective on property pricing decisions. Organ Behav Hum DecisProcess 39:228–241.

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24. Dhami MK (2003) Psychological models of professional decision making. Psychol Sci14:175–180.

6892 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018033108 Danziger et al.

Evidence of Secondary TraumaticStress, Safety Concerns, and BurnoutAmong a Homogeneous Group ofJudges in a Single Jurisdiction

Jared Chamberlain, MA, and Monica K. Miller, JD, PhD

Active judges are likely to face numerous work-related experiences (e.g., traumatic cases) that affect performanceof their occupational duties. Three occupational experiences (secondary traumatic stress [STS], safety concerns,and burnout) are outlined and applied to the judiciary. Results from nine case study interviews conducted in a singlejurisdiction among a homogeneous cohort suggest that judges are at risk of having these experiences. Although nojudge demonstrated extreme symptoms, all had low levels of symptoms associated with STS, safety concerns,and/or burnout. Several recommendations are proposed to prevent or minimize these occupational experiences.Recognizing and addressing the problem are essential for the protection of our nation’s judges and the integrityof our judicial system.

J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 37:214–24, 2009

Judges play an essential role in upholding the idealsof the American justice system. Inextricably linkedwith the judicial occupation are many experiencesthat judges regularly encounter. Long hours, sub-stantial workloads, occasional traumatic cases, themaking of important decisions, and recent violentincidents involving judges1–4 highlight some of thepotentially traumatic occupational experiences of thejudiciary. Further, judges may experience negativephysical (e.g., becoming overweight) and emotional(e.g., boredom, burnout) outcomes from sitting onthe bench for countless hours. It is important that webegin to understand and account for these experi-ences, as they have the potential not only to affectjudges’ personal lives negatively, but also to impedethem from performing their duties to the best of theirabilities.

It is worth noting that many of these occupationalpressures and conflicts are not unique to the judi-ciary. For instance, many businessmen, doctors, and

professors presumably work long hours, handle largecaseloads, and make important decisions on a regularbasis. However, we argue that judges face a uniquecombination of occupational experiences that maybe overly burdensome.3,4 Further, given that judgesmake important decisions that often determine thefate of parties involved (and, more generally, affectentire jurisdictions, states, or countries), the occupa-tional experiences of judges have a large societal im-pact and are thus important to study.

There are several ways in which judges’ occupa-tional experiences may lead to negative outcomes forthe justice system.1 For instance, occupational burn-out (i.e., physical and emotional stress stemmingfrom occupational factors) may negatively affect ajudge’s ability to consider relevant evidence. Judges’experiences can also affect jurors who may be unableto perform their duties properly if they are not ade-quately instructed by a judge who is experiencinghigh levels of stress.3 For example, a judge who isexperiencing secondary traumatic stress (STS; i.e.,stress incurred from helping another person througha traumatic event) may not recognize that jurors areunable to understand complicated instructions thatare crucial in deciding a verdict. Similarly, occupa-tional experiences may affect judges’ abilities to pro-

Mr. Chamberlain is a doctoral candidate, Interdisciplinary Social Psy-chology PhD Program, and a research assistant, Grant Sawyer Centerfor Justice Studies, and Dr. Miller is Assistant Professor of CriminalJustice and Social Psychology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV. Ad-dress correspondence to: Jared Chamberlain, Grant Sawyer Center forJustice Studies, Mailstop 313, University of Nevada, Reno, NV89557. E-mail: jchamberlain7@gmail.com

214 The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

R E G U L A R A R T I C L E

tect jurors, plaintiffs, and defendants from potentialstressors, such as those presented by the media.

Finally, experiences in the judicial occupation mayinfluence the decisions that judges make, with obvi-ous negative implications for the legal system. Forinstance, a judge may (perhaps subconsciously) mod-ify a decision based on a perceived threat from one ofthe parties in a case, even though measures (e.g.,motions for recusal) are in place to avoid such influ-ences. In sum, judges play a crucial role throughoutthe trial process and it is therefore important to un-derstand and attempt to alleviate the occupationalexperiences that may impede their decision-makingcapacities.

Although these propositions have not been testeddirectly and are purely speculative, there is some ev-idence that stress (which presumably stems fromthese experiences) affects the occupational perfor-mance of judges. Research in the field of occupa-tional stress suggests that stress lowers one’s memorycapacity,5– 8 undermines one’s decision-makingprocesses,6,9,10 and increases social stereotyping, thusleading to biased judgments.11,12 High cognitive de-mand (i.e., cognitive load) can influence the abilityto recall facts and make impartial judgments.13,14 Insum, research suggests that these occupational expe-riences (i.e., STS, safety concerns, and burnout) maylead to negative outcomes for members of the judi-ciary and the judicial system in general. Coupledwith sparse existing research,15 the current study pro-vides some initial evidence about the impact of theseexperiences on the judiciary.

It was our goal in this research to draw attention tothree classes of occupational experiences that judgesface (STS, safety concerns, and burnout) and topresent recommendations to alleviate them. First,anecdotal evidence will be examined to determinejudges’ susceptibility to each of the experiences. Theevidence will include a discussion of the theoreticaland empirical foundations of each experience, andthe specific implications that these experiences havefor judges’ health. Second, the results of an explor-atory qualitative analysis of case study interviews willbe presented to provide evidence that judges are atrisk of having these experiences. Results were takenfrom nine in-depth case study interviews with judgesin a medium-size city in the western United States.The reason for including these data was not topresent a representative picture, but simply to ex-plore the experiences of some judges and what they

mean for the judiciary and the justice system in gen-eral. Finally, preliminary recommendations will bepresented to highlight the role that judges, policymakers, officials, and researchers can play in prevent-ing or curbing these experiences among judges. It isimportant to note that the recommendations arelargely based on results of a survey in a single juris-diction and that they may not be relevant or novel inother jurisdictions in the United States.

Secondary Traumatic Stress

It is not uncommon for judges, especially those infamily or criminal courts, to be exposed to cases in-volving traumatic events. Throughout the trial pro-cess, they are often exposed to gruesome evidenceand disturbing family circumstances. Recent high-profile cases exemplify the traumatic situations en-countered by judges. For instance, the trial of DenaSchlosser, a mother accused of mutilating and killingher baby, certainly contained evidence that wasdeeply disturbing for those involved in the trial.16

Theories of STS indicate exposure to such evidencemay be stressful for many judges who hear thesecases.

STS generally refers to stress incurred from help-ing another person through a traumatic event.17 Re-search on secondary trauma18 –20 has focused onidentifying and treating stress in individuals (e.g.,emergency workers, counselors, and therapists) whoconsistently encounter significant levels of secondarytrauma. These studies provide a reasonable basis forthe theory that judges experience secondary stress;however, lacking any empirical evidence, claimsabout STS in the judiciary are purely speculative.There are several different perspectives on secondarytrauma, each of which suggests that judges are sus-ceptible to secondary stress. Vicarious traumatization(VT), a particular type of STS, focuses on transfor-mations that occur in trauma workers as a directresult of empathic engagement.21,22 VT can lead tochanges in self-identity, spirituality, and psychologi-cal needs of the affected individual and may alsodisturb an individual’s sense of safety, trust, and con-trol.23 Although typically applied to therapists andother caregiver occupations, judges may experienceVT to the extent that they act as caregivers. A surveyconducted by the National Center for State Courts24

revealed that judges believe it is their duty to protectjurors from stress, suggesting that judges do care forcourtroom actors. Similarly, Flores and colleagues2

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found that judges felt that the court has a moderate tohigh level of responsibility for addressing the needs ofjurors in their courtrooms. Judges might also experi-ence VT from exposure to evidence of violenceagainst a plaintiff or stories about a defendant’s trau-matic childhood. Thus, although judges may not actas caregivers in the same way as counselors or thera-pists, aspects of their job (e.g., ensuring fairness in thecourtroom) appear to be tied to caretaking.

Safety Concerns

Violence and threats of violence against judges andtheir families have become prominent media topicsin recent years. For instance, on June 28, 2006, afamily court judge was shot and wounded in a Reno,Nevada, courthouse, where he had presided over hisattacker’s divorce trial.25 This incident exemplifiesthe growing number of cases involving violenceagainst judges.1,4 Recent incidents of hostility havepresumably created a tangible source of stress formany judges, as each incident is brought to light byconsiderable media coverage. Violence aimed atjudges is likely to create a sense of vulnerability andinsecurity for anyone entering the judiciary. Con-cerns about safety may even extend to family, as vio-lence against family members of some judges has oc-curred in recent years.26

Safety concerns stem from threats of violence thatjudges encounter both inside and outside the court-room. A survey of Pennsylvania judges revealed that52 percent had received one or more threateningmessages.15 Seventy percent of the judges who re-ceived threats stated that they occurred inside thecourtroom, while 44 percent reported threats occur-ring outside the courthouse. In addition, activejudges, compared with senior judges, were morelikely to report that they had been threatened, sug-gesting that judges who serve full time may experi-ence more threatening situations. In-depth inter-views found that the judges shared several anxietiesabout courtroom violence. They believed that at-tacks, threats, and harassment are common occur-rences. In addition, they unanimously expressed thebelief that courtroom protection is not now andnever will be sufficient to curb potential attacks.15

Taken together, these findings suggest that judgesexperience anxiety and stress from threats ofviolence.

It seems that policy makers have begun to recog-nize that violence and threats of violence against

judges are potentially serious problems. For instance,judges in some jurisdictions have recently been giventhe right to carry a concealed gun while on thebench.27 Given the increase in incidents of court-room violence against judges in recent years, the im-plementation of such a measure may be appropriate.The reported prevalence of threats further bolstersthe need for measures to protect judges’ safety. Al-though allowing them to carry guns is only one po-tential (and perhaps extreme) solution to a muchlarger problem of judicial stress, it may grant a senseof control to judges who are concerned about theirsafety in the courtroom.

Work-Related Burnout

The third major stressor that judges may experi-ence is work-related burnout. The judicial occupa-tion can demand long hours and thus the ability tocope with a consistently heavy workload. Because oflong working hours and the plethora of cases, judgesare faced with challenges that inevitably add stress toan already demanding job. Unprepared lawyers, un-cooperative defendants, and conflicts with otherjudges are some examples of job-related stressors.Judges also may experience difficulties when they areforced to make decisions that will have a major im-pact on the lives of the parties involved in the case.One study28 revealed that some of these claims haveempirical merit, as judges reported experiencing sig-nificant amounts of stress when dealing with poorlyprepared or disrespectful counsel and when exercis-ing judicial discretion. Judges may also experiencepressures apart from their primary occupational du-ties. For example, elected judges have the additionaldemand of preparing for (i.e., campaigning) andworrying about being elected. Similarly, publicitysurrounding judges’ decisions can be a contributingsource of stress.28

The occupational stressors already mentioned arepotential contributors to work-related burnout.17

Burnout may result from workplace conflict, anoverload of responsibilities, and the perception ofinequity or inadequate rewards.29 As discussed,judges are routinely given responsibilities (e.g., de-ciding a case) that carry important consequences andare commonly exposed to the trauma of others.Workplace conflict is also a prominent aspect of thejudicial occupation, given the nature of the adver-sarial system and the subsequent threats of violencethat many judges receive. Safety concerns stemming

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from workplace conflict may contribute to work-related burnout. Notions of occupational inequitymay be a common sentiment among judges, as thejob requires long hours and intense emotional invest-ment with relatively small rewards. Prospectivejudges certainly play an active role in seeking judicialappointment or election and should thus be aware ofthe long hours, heavy workloads, and important re-sponsibilities that the position demands. However, itis plausible that some judges do not fully understandthe nature of the position before entering it. All ofthese factors suggest that judges are highly suscepti-ble to work-related burnout and its resulting detri-mental physical and emotional consequences.

Some common physical and emotional responsesto burnout include headaches, hypertension, depres-sion, insomnia, and disillusionment.30 Burnout mayalso cause a negative self-perception and negative at-titudes toward work and others in general.31 Thus,occupational stress research suggests that judges whosuffer from work-related burnout can experience avariety of negative physical and emotional outcomes.However, these suppositions lack direct empirical ev-idence, and further research is needed for accurateassessment of the prevalence of burnout amongjudges. In the current study, we attempted to assessoccupational stressors in a single jurisdiction in ahomogeneous sample of judges.

Overview of the Study

Methods

This research protocol was approved by the Uni-versity of Nevada, Reno Social Behavioral Institu-tional Review Board. Nine judges, all Caucasians(two women and seven men) serving in a districtcourt in a midsized city in a western state, agreed toundergo semistructured interviews. They had beenon the bench ranging from a few months to over 15years. Although it is unlikely that judges who havebeen on the bench for only a few months wouldexhibit symptoms of occupational burnout, theycould experience STS and safety concerns. Thus,these judges were included in the study. One was afamily court judge, and eight were general jurisdic-tion judges. In addition, all of them were in closeproximity (physically and professionally) to theshooting of family court judge Chuck Weller.25 In-terviews were conducted by a female PhD-level psy-chologist and lasted between 45 and 90 minutes. All

participants were asked several standardized ques-tions about stress they had experienced, their reac-tions to safety concerns, their occupational experi-ence, and relationships with family. The questionswere designed to be broad; the interviewer did notprime the judges with direct questions, such as “haveyou experienced burnout?” Instead, the questions al-lowed the judges to bring up experiences on theirown. The interviewer allowed the judges to speak atlength without interruption and probed for moreinformation as needed. The basic research questionthat we hoped to answer in conducting these inter-views was: when judges describe their work experi-ences, do they make comments that indicate thatthey experience STS, safety concerns, and burnout?

Transcripts from the nine interviews were ana-lyzed for content that would suggest that they were atrisk of STS, burnout, and stress related to their safetyconcerns. Thus the coding scheme used was based onthe researchers’ expertise and understanding of theaforementioned concepts.

Two researchers coded the messages. Both werewell trained in relevant research methods (i.e., con-tent analysis) and were familiar with the concepts ofinterest. One was a female PhD-level psychologist;the other was a male MA-level psychologist pursuinga PhD in social psychology. The researchers dis-cussed what types of comments would be consideredevidence of STS, burnout, and safety concerns anddeveloped a coding scheme that was based on thedefinitions of the concepts established in previousresearch. In collaboration, researchers discussed theparameters of the concepts until they felt comfort-able that they were generally in agreement about thecoding categories and definitions. For instance, to bean indicator of work-related burnout, a commenthad to include a direct or indirect mention of one orany combination of the following stressors: overloadof responsibility, workplace conflict, and perceptionof inequity.

Results and Discussion

The researchers identified 54 responses that weregermane to these purposes. The responses were ap-proximately equally divided among judges, althoughone judge offered more usable quotes than others,and another judge offered fewer than the rest. Thetwo authors separately analyzed all of the messagesfor specific relevance to each of three proposed occu-pational experiences to determine intercoder reliabil-

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ity. The researchers agreed that 45 (87%) of the 52messages were properly categorized as indicators ofSTS, burnout, or safety concerns. Disagreements be-tween the coders were resolved through discussion.The results generally indicated that the judges were atrisk of experiencing stress from these three sources.The quotations were taken directly from themessages.

Secondary Traumatic Stress

Thirteen messages were identified as potential in-dicators of STS in the judges. The researchers agreedthat 10 of the 13 messages showed that the judgeswere at risk of STS, yielding a 77 percent agreementrate.

Several themes emerged from the analysis of com-ments relevant to STS. First, the judges noted thatthe courtroom can be a very emotional setting. Inresponse to a question about courtroom interactionamong courtroom actors one family court judge said:“We send people away here because, mostly of theirown making, they don’t get along together, they hateeach other, and they come to family court and have astranger tell them what’s going to happen; there are alot of emotions.” Another judge specifically com-mented on the emotions common to family courts,stating, “We know that family cases are the mostemotional cases in the world.”

These comments provide an indirect connectionto VT, the theory that emotion is an important com-ponent of secondary stress. Although these com-ments do not suggest that the judges exhibit empathy(i.e., care for legal actors), they imply that they maybe prone to experiencing STS because the events intheir workplace are inherently emotional.

The judges commonly described the anxiety andtrauma experienced by plaintiffs or defendants. Onementioned the various types of trauma that judgesexperience vicariously: “[Judges] deal with death,paraplegia, burning, [and] infant trauma.” The samejudge also noted the trauma and anxiety inherent indivorce: “Anybody who has been through a divorceknows that that is among the most traumatic experi-ences of their life.” Another judge also indicated thatevidence heard in the courtroom can be traumatic,stating that judges “deal with people being horriblyhurt or. . .murdered.” These comments suggest thatthese judges were affected by the traumatic experi-ences of others, indicating that the courtroom mayfoster the development of some degree of STS.

Several of the participants also indicated that theyhad become emotionally involved in trials, suggest-ing that some may experience empathy for those whohave been traumatized. For instance, one judge ex-plained that he sometimes struggles “to keep [his]emotions in check” and that he has “let [his] emo-tions go because of [his] experiences and [his] per-sonality.” The same judge also expressed some con-cern for victims, stating, “I find myself having towatch myself from striking out [in response to] whatI perceive to be a personal attack. . .on the victim.”Another judge conveyed similar concerns for victims,explaining that the court was “able to provide [a vic-tim] with some counseling.” These comments seemto provide support for the argument of STS amongjudges—namely, that judges feel empathy for plain-tiffs and defendants and sometimes even act ascaregivers.

The judges also appeared to assume the role ofcaretaker by ensuring the well-being of their jurors.One stated, “Years ago I had a murder trial. . . . Oneof the jurors stayed in the jury room for three or fourhours, and we were able to provide her with somecounseling and so on. . . . Nobody in a case reallywants to be here.” One judge even sympathized witha defendant who expressed feeling out of place andstressed by the court proceedings, stating that “Thisis an alien place for most people to be who are partiesand witnesses, and in some cases even lawyers.”Thus, the judges recognized the toll that the courtprocess takes on those involved in the proceedings.Although a judge may not act as a caretaker in thesame way as a counselor or therapist, these commentssuggest that some judges assume the responsibility ofcaring for the well-being of courtroom actors.

These analyses indicate that the judges may be atrisk for STS given the nature of their work environ-ment. First, the judges indicated that trials were oftenemotional and traumatic for the parties involved.Second, they exhibited emotional responses to vic-tims, which included empathy for traumatized vic-tims, jurors, and defendants. Although the judges didnot explicitly state that they had experienced stressfrom others’ traumas, the findings suggest that theymay be at risk of STS.

Safety Concerns

Twenty-three statements were identified as possi-ble signs of stress due to safety concerns, with re-

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searchers agreeing on 22 (96%). Several key themesemerged.

First, the judges were very much aware of thesafety concerns involved in being a judge. The ma-jority of them mentioned that they knew of, or weretroubled by, incidents in which judges or their fam-ilies were injured. In response to the recent act ofviolence against his colleague, one judge said, “This isan extremely emotional and stressful environ-ment. . . . It doesn’t surprise me that people act outand we have to expect [violence].” Another expresseda similar sentiment: “[Violence] is a recognized pos-sibility, but the possibility turning into an actual [actof violence] is more than the postal experience; any-body, an employee, could go off and try and get you.”As a result, the judges feared for personal safety andtheir family’s safety. Several indicated that they wereafraid for older parents and children who might beexposed to violence. For instance, one judge stated,“I have this thought or belief I could probably protectmyself but my kids can’t.”

Second, many of the judges gave examples ofthreats they had personally received. Some had re-ceived threatening letters; others had been ap-proached in public by disgruntled individuals. Oneindicated that if he was shot, he could immediatelythink of four or five suspects. One judge admittedbeing concerned about a specific individual in a casewho was “calling the house and stuff like that for awhile. That was sort of unnerving because. . .he’d sitacross the street. . .and watch the garage at night.”

The third theme that emerged involved the effectof safety on legal decision-making. Nearly half of thejudges indicated a fear that violence could affect ajudge’s decision. Several indicated that they some-times suspect that a defendant might be dangerous ormight retaliate, and they must be very careful not tolet that affect their decisions. One said, “The institu-tion needs to provide an environment where thejudges are free to issue appropriate sentences underthe law. Not to have something where any decision isinfluenced out of physical harm [or threat].”

Finally, most of the judges indicated that they hadspecifically done things to prevent individuals intheir courts from becoming angry. One said, “I’vealways believed that the amount of patience youshow to the litigants and the way you treat them willput you in a better situation with regard to retalia-tion.” Another commented:

I think it is important for litigants to understand why ajudge makes a decision, I think it is important for a judge tomake a decision as quickly as possible, because delay causesfrustration. . .and a feeling of helplessness, [that] is one ofthe things that causes incidents like this. When people feellike they’ve been pushed to the edge and they don’t haveany other recourse, that’s when they take totally illogicaland irresponsible steps, like getting a gun.

Another judge stated that he expects a high level offormality, respect, and decorum in the courtroom.He feels this encourages individuals to respect thelegal system and can reduce the chance that someonewould want to strike out.

As this analysis indicates, the judges had experi-enced a variety of stressors related to their safety con-cerns. They were concerned about threats they hadpersonally received and potential threats to theirfamily. They were aware that the threats could affecttheir decision-making and had taken steps to preventharm to themselves and their families.

It is important to note that safety concerns werelikely to be fresh in the judges’ minds because theinterviews were conducted shortly after anotherjudge (not included in this study) was shot and in-jured, allegedly by a man who was unhappy with hisruling. Nevertheless, all of the judges indicated thatthey had been taking steps to ensure their safety sincebecoming a judge. Many had been taking precau-tions for many years and had become accustomed tothe safety concerns that accompany their occupation.All exhibited concern about their safety or the safetyof those around them. These stressors, among others,could lead to work-related burnout.

Work-Related Burnout

Sixteen comments were originally identified assigns of burnout in the sample. Coders agreed that 15of the 16 comments suggested that the judge wasvulnerable to burnout. Thus, intercoder reliabilitywas relatively high at 94 percent. Comments in thiscategory were grouped into themes according to howthey relate to the concept of burnout.

The analysis revealed that the judges exhibitedeach of the burnout symptoms: overload of respon-sibility, workplace conflict, and perception of ineq-uity. Most notably, they described stress related to anoverload of work-related responsibilities. They ex-plained that large caseloads and other responsibilitieswere major contributors to stress. One judge ex-plained that some judges were “killing themselves”by working “50 to 60 hours a week.” Another judgecommented that “[The work] never goes away. . .it’s

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not deciding the case, but it’s writing the decision-. . .that causes stress.” A different judge explainedthat “there is constant pressure to hear the cases.”

One type of occupational responsibility that wasparticularly stressful was the task of making decisionsin court. When asked to explain the causes of work-place stress, one judge said:

It (making a decision) is not altogether so clear and some-body usually benefits by your decision and somebody isusually harmed by it in some way: it costs them money, orthey lose property, they go to jail, or are on probation. Andso it’s stressful to me to make those decisions because I tendto go out of here and think about them for a day or two, orwake up in the middle of the night and wonder if it’s theright thing.

Another judge stated, “Most of the stress in the officeis from difficult decisions, and trying to figure outwhat the appropriate ruling is on a given issue.”These statements suggest that judges experience agreat deal of stress from an overload of decision-making responsibilities.

The public nature of the occupation also seemedto contribute to an overload of responsibility. Onejudge stated:

The judge represents the legal system in the eye of society.How we conduct ourselves. How we conduct our court-room. How we are attentive to anger and irrationality in thecourtroom, and deal with it, and try to minimize it so thatthe courtroom, and the legal process, is efficient and or-derly.

This comment suggests that judges may experiencethe added pressure of being perfect exemplars be-cause they often face public scrutiny. Several of thejudges explained that public scrutiny is especiallyhigh when running for office. One judge noted that,“Campaigns can be very stressful. . . . If you have acampaign your whole year is entirely devoted to thecampaign.” Another judge found the fundraisingprocess to be particularly burdensome, stating, “Idon’t want to have to go through the fundraiser pro-cess. It’s tough for judges because you’re making de-cisions and people that are involved in the process aretrying to make campaign contributions.” In short,the judges, especially those who had to run for office,experienced an overload of responsibility stemmingfrom the public nature of the occupation. There wassome indication that the elected judges face the taskof balancing their public and private interests whencampaigning.

Another commonly discussed symptom of burn-out was workplace conflict. Several of the judges in-dicated that they had experienced conflict (or per-

ceived conflict) with legal actors, staff, andcolleagues. As a byproduct of the traumatic court-room environment, judges may experience conflictvia violence within the cases. As one judge explained,“people [can] find criminal cases very stressful be-cause you see man’s inhumanity to man, and it’s veryugly.” In addition, violence against other judges hasseemingly created a source of conflict. For instance,one judge stated, “[The possibility of violence] isalways on our minds. . . . I think anybody who doesthe kind of work we do over a period of time [be-comes] hypervigilant.” The judges also experiencedmore direct forms of workplace conflict through con-tact with staff and other judges. For instance, onejudge said:

I have my own staff so I have personnel issues that alwayscause [me] anxiety and stress. . . . Dealing with otherjudges within the framework that we have is kind of stress-ful; sometimes we aren’t as kind to one another as perhapswe should be, and I find that very stressful. Disrespectingeach other is very hard on me.

This analysis suggests that judges may experience oc-cupational conflict from a variety of sources. Thereporting of indirect and direct workplace conflictfrom courtroom experiences, perceived threats of vi-olence, and contact with colleagues and staff suggeststhat the judges may be vulnerable to burnout.

Transcript analyses also revealed that some of thejudges perceived occupational inequities. Specifi-cally, they indicated that courthouse safety concernswere not being properly addressed by officials andcitizens. One expressed frustration about the lack ofaction in regard to safety measures:

Nothing is really getting done; there is more talk about itbut nothing is really happening. We have been talkingabout having an order about guns in the courthouse sinceDecember, but as we speak now, July, still no order hasbeen signed.

Another judge expressed frustration with the system,stating that the sheriff’s office had originally plannedto conduct safety surveys with judges and court per-sonnel but had failed to take action. He explainedthat the survey “had been distributed to no one.” Thejudges also expressed a lack of public support for thecause. In discussing changes that needed to be madeat the courthouse, one judge said:

Voters don’t really care about the courthouse. . . . [I]tmakes [me] somewhat jaded about the people, your fellowhumans, who you work with. . . . I do think it has a lotbroader effect on people where you just seem resigned thatit’s just going to happen again.

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These comments suggest that the judges may feelunderappreciated by the officials and, more gener-ally, the public. Given the demands of the occupa-tion and the sacrifices that the judges make for theirwork, it is plausible that they perceived an inequity inthe lack of public and private support for their pro-tection in the courtroom. Frequent mention of thisproblem seems to suggest that they did not believethey were receiving adequate support.

Similar to STS, burnout is a form of stress that isnot easily recognized among those it affects. Thus, itis often necessary to assess the symptoms of burnoutto determine its presence. As discussed by Maslachand Leiter29 symptoms of burnout may includeworkplace conflict, an overload of responsibilities,and the perception of inequity. Although the judgesdid not explicitly state that they were suffering fromwork-related burnout (probably because they werenot directly asked whether they were), there wereseveral indications that they were at risk. First, theyexperienced an overload of responsibilities stemmingfrom large caseloads, decision-making pressures, andpublic scrutiny. Second, they indicated that therewas a great deal of workplace conflict from indirect(e.g., trauma in the court cases, violence againstjudges) and direct (e.g., conflict with colleagues andstaff) sources. Finally, there was some indication thatthey perceived occupational inequities in dealingwith individual citizens and public officials. Takentogether, these comments suggest that they are at riskof work-related burnout. It is worth mentioning thatthey experience symptoms of both case-related burn-out (unique to the judiciary) and administration-related burnout (common to many professions).Thus, the results presented herein indicate that thejudges in this small, homogeneous sample have had aunique combination of occupational experiences.Future research, with more representative samples,should further assess the prevalence of burnout in thecourtroom.

Recommendations

As discussed, judges encounter a trio of occupa-tional experiences: secondary traumatic stress, safetyconcerns, and work-related burnout. A variety ofmeasures are proposed in this section, many of whichhave been derived from the judges’ comments in thecurrent study. Because these recommendations arebased on the experiences of judges in only one juris-diction, they may not be relevant or novel for judges

in other jurisdictions in the United States. Thus,these recommendations are merely intended to pro-vide a basis for addressing the negative impacts ofSTS, safety concerns, and work-related burnout forjudges who have similar occupational experiencesand working environments.

First, judges should be trained to recognize theeffects of these occupational stressors. As one judgenoted, it is important for judges “to seek help fromphysicians, counselors, and psychologists if neces-sary.” Although some judges may be able to recog-nize when they are experiencing STS, safety con-cerns, or burnout, it is likely that many judges are toobusy to acknowledge the physical and emotionalmanifestations of these experiences. Leaders in judi-cial workplaces should promote an environment thataccepts stress prevention and stress relief as a naturalpart of the trial process. This culture would encour-age judges to take the necessary steps to recognizesymptoms of these stressors and prevent their nega-tive consequences.

Second, judges should be encouraged to take timeoff to relieve the effects of difficult occupational ex-periences. As discussed, judges often experience anoverload of responsibility. For instance, one judgeexplained:

And the calendar can be very stressful in that there is con-stant pressure to hear the cases. . . . How do I get those 10cases heard? And then I’ve got the lawyers waiting that wantto start. And you’re a little bit late starting on that hearingbecause you finished the first hearing, and how do youjuggle all of that? That can get kind of stressful at times.

Anxiety stemming from occupational responsibilitiescan be remedied by an occasional break from work.Even an extra day off to engage in a favorite hobbycan help a judge come back to the bench refreshedand relaxed. Longer-term sabbaticals should also beencouraged from time to time to allow judges to getaway for a few weeks or months. Having a break fromthe constant stream of work can help give them re-newed focus. For instance, having a break could helpprevent the long-term damage of vicarious trauma.

Third, safety should be a primary concern for allcourthouses. As the Pennsylvania survey15 indicated,judges do not feel that courthouses are safe enough.The judges in the current study expressed concernsabout safety as it related to judicial decision-making.For example, one judge explained that “the institu-tion needs to provide an environment where thejudges are free to issue appropriate sentences underthe fact of the law. . .not where any decision is influ-

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enced out of [fear of] physical harm.” It is impossibleto prevent every kind of harm that a judge can expe-rience at work or in his personal life. However, strictsafety measures can make great strides in helpingjudges feel safer. Professionals who are trained to rec-ognize weaknesses in safety should assess courthouseson a regular basis. The experts’ recommendationsshould be followed to ensure that courthouse em-ployees (and visitors) are as safe as possible. Further,judges can be more vocal about safety concerns thanthey might have. For instance, one judge explainedthat he had once called ahead to make sure an armedbailiff was present “because the person on the otherside had made threats.”

Fourth, judges should be provided with the op-portunity, information, and skills needed to protectthemselves. The need for such protection was con-firmed by the judges who expressed doubt that theycould protect themselves from violence in the court-room. For instance, personal safety programs canhelp judges be more vigilant and defend themselvesagainst a personal attack. Safety devices such as carand personal alarms should be provided for judgeswho want them. While many jurisdictions alreadyhave such measures in place, they should be a stan-dard feature of every jurisdiction.

Fifth, steps should be taken to preserve profession-alism within the courtroom. As a means of protectingthe integrity of the courtroom, several judges sug-gested that it was important to establish positive rap-port with legal actors. For instance, one judgestressed the importance of patience and courtesy, ex-plaining that a “higher level of decorum is expectedin the courtroom.” Another judge stressed the im-portance of “letting people know why you [madethat] decision” so that “everyone [can] walk awayfrom the court feeling like they were heard.” Individ-uals who do not respect the courtroom and courtprocedure will be more likely to strike out at judges,as suggested by one: “If you’re rude to a defendantthey’re more likely to send their family members af-ter. . .your family members.” In contrast, individualswho respect the authority of the court and feel it is alegitimate governing body will follow the court’s rul-ings and will be less likely to retaliate. Such individ-uals obey court orders, not because they have to, butbecause they believe that the court, as a legitimateauthority, should be obeyed.32 Most judges presum-ably understand the importance of courtroom pro-fessionalism; however these comments serve as an

important reminder that positive courtroom rapportconveys legitimate authority and encourages respectamong the courtroom actors.

We also recommend that research be conducted toget a better understanding of the occupational expe-riences that lead to stress for judges. Researchersshould develop measures to identify stress so thatprevention and treatment programs can be devel-oped. The stress theories discussed herein have notbeen tested on judges to the extent that would benecessary to get a full understanding; thus, little isknown about judges’ reactions to the stressors oftheir jobs.

Finally, the findings presented in this article indi-cate that government funding is needed to assess andaddress the experiences of judges. In discussing thelack of funding for the prevention of violence in thecourtroom, one judge stated, “You sort of seem re-signed that it is just going to happen again and it isgoing to keep happening until we get some leader-ship in the executive branch.” Courthouses needfunds to make safety improvements, court adminis-trators need funds to provide safety programs, andresearchers need money to study stress. More em-ployees are needed to take some of the heavy load offof judges and allow them to take time off whenneeded. Ultimately, the government should providegreater funding to protect this important branch ofgovernment.

Limitations

A few limitations of the survey are worthy of note.First and foremost, in the current research, the judgeswere not directly asked if they had experienced STS,safety concerns, or burnout. Instead, more generalquestions about stressful and anxiety-provoking ex-periences were asked to avoid introducing a responsebias. Future research should be more direct and usemore specific measures (e.g., closed-ended measures)to ensure reliability and objectivity in analysis. A re-lated limitation is that judges may be unwilling todisclose their symptoms and experiences. It is likelythat the judges did not explicitly state that they hadencountered some experiences because such an ad-mission would imply weakness in judicial decision-making, an outcome that is presumably undesirablefor all judges. There was evidence of this in the inter-views, as some of the judges were hesitant to say thatthey had personally suffered and were more likely tostate that other judges and employees at the court-

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222 The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

house had experienced trauma. Thus, the fact thatthey did not explicitly reference STS, safety con-cerns, and burnout does not imply that they do notencounter them; rather, it may simply suggest thatthey are wary of the consequences of admitting theseexperiences. Our experience shows the challengesthat future researchers face in accurately gauging theexperiences of judges.

Another limitation of the current research is therestricted generalizability of the results due to thesmall and homogeneous sample. All of the interview-ees were Caucasian and most were men. Further-more, only one judge was a family court judge; theremainder were judges of general jurisdiction. Thus,it is impossible to determine if these results generalizeto the population of judges as a whole. For instance,it is possible that the safety concerns of those inter-viewed were inflated because of the proximal (interms of time and location) nature of the recentshooting of a fellow judge. On the other hand, vio-lent acts perpetrated against judges and their familiesmay increase safety concerns among judges across thecountry, given the wide media coverage garnered bythese occurrences. In short, the current exploratorystudy provides a picture of judges’ experiences in alimited context and does not provide a broad pictureof the judiciary as a whole.

Conclusion

As legal gatekeepers, decision-makers, caretakers,and disciplinarians, judges play a fundamental role inthe American justice system. Inherent in the judicialoccupation are several experiences that can negativelyaffect judges’ decisions. This research has outlinedthree broad experiences that judges should under-stand and attempt to account for. Secondary trau-matic stress, which includes vicarious trauma, refersto trauma stemming from helping another through atraumatic event. Results from this qualitative inter-view study suggest that judges are vulnerable to STS,as they are regularly exposed to trauma and often feelempathy for victims. Safety concerns stemming fromacts of violence and threats of violence against judgesand their families also may contribute to judicialstress. Results revealed that judges often experiencesafety concerns. Violence against judges is likely tocreate a sense of vulnerability and insecurity for any-one assuming the bench. Finally, there was evidencethat judges are at risk of burnout, as many of thejudges in the current study exhibited some of the

primary symptoms of burnout, such as workplaceconflict and an overload of responsibilities. Althoughno judge demonstrated extreme symptoms, all hadlow levels of symptoms associated with STS, safetyconcerns, and burnout.

There are several recommended steps that judges,policy makers and officials can take to prevent orminimize the impact of these occupational experi-ences. Judges should be trained to recognize symp-toms of STS in themselves, and officials in judicialworkplaces should foster an environment that ac-cepts STS prevention. Judges should also take breaks(e.g., retreats, sabbaticals) from work to minimizework-related burnout. They should be provided withthe necessary opportunities, information, and skillsneeded to protect themselves. To address judges’safety concerns, courthouses should be properlyequipped with the necessary technology and person-nel to stop acts of violence. The integrity of the court-room should be protected by establishing mutual re-spect among judges, attorneys, plaintiffs, anddefendants. Research should also be conducted tobetter our understanding of judicial stress. Perhapsmost important, government funding is necessary toensure that judges have the resources to employ theaforementioned recommendations. These steps areessential in protecting our nation’s judges and theintegrity of our judicial system.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors thank Jim Richardson for helpful comments.

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224 The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law

JUDGE PAUL A. BONIN

Judge Paul A. Bonin has just commenced service as a judge of the Criminal District

Court for the Parish of Orleans. Until then he had been serving as a judge on the Louisiana 4th

Circuit Court of Appeal, based in New Orleans, for the previous eight years. Before his work as

an appellate judge, Judge Bonin was a judge of the New Orleans Traffic Court for more than ten

years and, during that time, served a term as president of the Louisiana City Court Judges

Association.

In addition to his judicial responsibilities, Judge Bonin serves as the Chair of the

Louisiana Board of Examiners of Certified Shorthand Reporters and was reappointed in 2014 by

the Louisiana Supreme Court to a second three-year term on the board. He also serves as the

Chair of the Court Costs Standing Committee of the Judicial Council and is a member of the

Council’s New Judgeships Committee.

During his legal career, Judge Bonin actively engaged in the general practice of law,

including a stint as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Louisiana, and was appointed

on a temporary basis to serve as a judge in the Municipal, Traffic and Juvenile Courts in New

Orleans as well as a Commissioner and judge ad hoc in Civil District Court. For many years he

was an Assistant Professor in the Criminal Justice Graduate Program of Southern University at

New Orleans and an adjunct at Delgado Community College.

He received his BA in Philosophy in 1973 from St. Joseph Seminary College near

Covington and his JD from Loyola College of Law in 1976, and completed the course work

toward the Master of Judicial Studies at the University of Nevada – Reno in association with the

National Judicial College.

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