title: Political Beings: Sociopolitical Influence on Federal District Court Judges' Criminal Sentencing Behavior
abstract: Judicial scholars have long debated what factors influence judges' decision-making. Several competing theories have offered relatively parsimonious explanations for the motivations of appellate judges, but sources of influence for trial judges are relatively understudied. One area ripe for testing potential determinants of trial court behavior is the criminal sentencing behavior of federal district court judges. Recent empirical research has examined federal district court sentencing, but this r