Essays on Heterogeneous Treatments of Defendants within Legal Institutions

This dissertation contains three essays that empirically examine heterogeneous treatments of defendants in a variety of settings within the criminal justice system. The heterogeneity of treatments stems from a number institutional factors that are beyond the control of the defendants. One such factor is case assignment mechanisms that randomly assign criminal matters to different court officers who may have different propensities or skill levels. Another is the discretion that individual officers have in terms of how they actual enforce laws. Each chapter emphasizes the implications these heterogeneous treatments have for the defendants as they move through the criminal justice system. The first essay analyzes the extent to which the type of defense counsel appointed to represent indigent defendants affects the case outcomes for those defendants. It then explores possible explanations for observed differences in outcomes between the different types of defense counsel, finding that adverse selection is of primary importance in explaining the outcome gap. The second essay uses data on citations from the North Carolina State Highway Patrol to show that speeding laws are enforced differently for out-of-state drivers than they are for in-state drivers. The third essay uses the sentencing propensities of individual judges as an instrument to determine the extent to which longer prison sentences affect an offender's future criminal activity. The results show some evidence that harsher sentences do indeed reduce the likelihood of recidivism, particularly when recidivism is defined over a relatively long time horizon.