Christina L Boyd
Biographic Data
| ID | 1162362 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christina L Boyd |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christina L |
| FAMILY NAME | Boyd |
| SIGNATURE | BOYD C L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Georgia |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5793-1066 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 316 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
In this research letter, we examine whether gender and racial bias affect interruption rates at one of the most visible events in American politics: US Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Using original data from 1939 to 2022, we find that male and white participants are more likely to interrupt women and person of color speakers, respectively, relative to male and white speakers. This finding holds for both senators and nominees as interrupters…
How the Trump Administration's Quota Policy Transformed Immigration Judging
The Trump administration implemented a controversial performance quota policy for immigration judges in October 2018. The policy's political motivations were clear: to pressure immigration judges to order more immigration removals and deportations as quickly as possible. Previous attempts by U.S. presidents to control immigration judges were ineffective, but this quota policy was different because it credibly threatened judges' job security and p…
Congressional Constraint? The Review of In Absentia Immigration Removal Orders in Federal Circuit Courts
Within the politically charged immigration system in the United States, Congress mandates the entry of in absentia removal orders against immigrants who fail to appear for immigration court hearings. Statutory guidance similarly constrains the ability of appellate courts to overturn those in absentia orders. In this article, we examine how federal circuit court judges make decisions in the review of in absentia orders when faced with discretion-r…
Constructing the Supreme Court: How Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Have Affected Presidential Selection and Senate Confirmation Hearings
The Emerging Authority of Magistrate Judges within US District Courts
The federal judicial system is a hierarchy with district courts at the bottom, courts of appeals in the middle, and the Supreme Court at the top. A second, less visible, judicial hierarchy exists within district courts, with magistrate judges situated below district judges. Existing scholarship largely ignores magistrate judges, assuming they are agents tasked with procedural matters with little independent effect on federal courts adjudication. …
Judicial behavior in disability cases: Do judge sex and race matter
In this short Dialogues contribution, we examine whether the anecdotal evidence about judge identity and decisions in Social Security disability cases from Johnson v. Social Security Administration holds more generally in the federal district courts. To do so, we begin with an introduction to Social Security disability cases, including how they are processed, how they are reviewed by the federal district courts, and why they may provide a strong …
The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
We investigate an unexplored aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process: whether questioning senators treat female and minority nominees differently from male and white nominees. Applying out-group theory, we argue that senators will ask female and minority nominees more questions about their “judicial philosophies” in an effort to determine their competence to serve on the Court. This out-group bias is likely to be exacerbated for nom…
The Political Responsiveness of Violent Crime Prosecution
Is a federal prosecutor’s decision whether to pursue violent crime charges political? While prosecutors frequently assert their decision-making independence, their selection and operational constraints suggest a very different story. We assess whether political factors related to the prosecution priorities of the president, Congress, and the local public affect federal prosecutors’ decisions to pursue or decline charges in violent crime matters. …
Representation on the Courts? The Effects of Trial Judges’ Sex and Race
Scholars have long sought to resolve whether and to what degree political actor diversity influences the outputs of political institutions like legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts. When it comes to the judiciary, diverse judges may greatly affect outcomes. Despite this potential, no consensus exists for whether judicial diversity affects behavior in trial courts—that is, the stage where the vast majority of litigants interact with t…
Nuclear Fallout: Investigating the Effect of Senate Procedural Reform on Judicial Nominations
On November 21, 2013, U.S. Senate Democrats utilized the long threatened “nuclear option,” thereby allowing a simple-majority of the chamber to end debate on lower federal court judicial nominations. Formal theory predicts that this change should permit the president to nominate more ideologically extreme nominees. By comparing President Obama’s nominees before and after the Senate’s change to the confirmation process, we are able to provide the …
Litigant Status and Trial Court Appeal Mobilization
The advantages held by haves over have nots in litigation have long fascinated scholars, with a long line of research revealing that litigant status often affects litigant resources, experience, and chances of overall success from trial courts to appellate courts. What has received considerably less attention, however, is how this status affects the decision to appeal. Bringing a new perspective to this important area holding implications for the…
She’ll Settle It
Relying on research that posits that female leaders and managers will be more likely than men to adopt a management style that favors participation, collaboration, and consensus building, I argue that female district court judges, using this style in their case management environments, should be more likely than their male colleagues to successfully foster intracourt case settlements. To test this, I compile data from nearly 18,000 civil rights a…
Selecting the Select Few: The Discuss List and the U.S. Supreme Court's Agenda‐Setting Process
Objective We investigate whether informational cues differentially affect a petition for review at each stage of the U.S. Supreme Court's agenda‐setting process. We specifically test how the cost of identifying a cue and the degree of information provided within it affect the cue's impact. Methods We use a random sample of archival data obtained from the private papers of Justice Harry A. Blackmun to jointly analyze the Court's discuss list and f…
Adjudicatory Oversight and Judicial Decision Making in Executive Branch Agencies
Adjudications are an important, though understudied, means through which administrative agencies create policies that have a lasting impact. We argue that executive branch agency heads utilize their oversight of agency adjudications to advance agency goals. Relying on an original data set of adjudications appealed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s agency head’s adjudication delegee, our empirical results indicate a substantial positive effe…
The Role of Law Clerks in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Agenda-Setting Process
Do law clerks influence the decisions made by justices on the U.S. Supreme Court? Although numerous studies of law clerk influence exist, none has controlled for alternative factors that lead a justice to behave in a particular way even absent the actions of the law clerk. Turning to the Court’s agenda-setting stage, we draw from archival materials contained in the private papers of Justice Harry A. Blackmun to address this precise issue. Our res…
Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging
We explore the role of sex in judging by addressing two questions of long‐standing interest to political scientists: whether and in what ways male and female judges decide cases distinctly—“individual effects”—and whether and in what ways serving with a female judge causes males to behave differently—“panel effects.” While we attend to the dominant theoretical accounts of why we might expect to observe either or both effects, we do not use the pr…
Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging
We explore the role of sex in judging by addressing two questions of long‐standing interest to political scientists: whether and in what ways male and female judges decide cases distinctly—“individual effects”—and whether and in what ways serving with a female judge causes males to behave differently—“panel effects.” While we attend to the dominant theoretical accounts of why we might expect to observe either or both effects, we do not use the pr…
Representation on the Courts? The Effects of Trial Judges’ Sex and Race
Scholars have long sought to resolve whether and to what degree political actor diversity influences the outputs of political institutions like legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts. When it comes to the judiciary, diverse judges may greatly affect outcomes. Despite this potential, no consensus exists for whether judicial diversity affects behavior in trial courts—that is, the stage where the vast majority of litigants interact with t…
She’ll Settle It
Relying on research that posits that female leaders and managers will be more likely than men to adopt a management style that favors participation, collaboration, and consensus building, I argue that female district court judges, using this style in their case management environments, should be more likely than their male colleagues to successfully foster intracourt case settlements. To test this, I compile data from nearly 18,000 civil rights a…
The Political Responsiveness of Violent Crime Prosecution
Is a federal prosecutor’s decision whether to pursue violent crime charges political? While prosecutors frequently assert their decision-making independence, their selection and operational constraints suggest a very different story. We assess whether political factors related to the prosecution priorities of the president, Congress, and the local public affect federal prosecutors’ decisions to pursue or decline charges in violent crime matters. …
The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
We investigate an unexplored aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process: whether questioning senators treat female and minority nominees differently from male and white nominees. Applying out-group theory, we argue that senators will ask female and minority nominees more questions about their “judicial philosophies” in an effort to determine their competence to serve on the Court. This out-group bias is likely to be exacerbated for nom…
Litigant Status and Trial Court Appeal Mobilization
The advantages held by haves over have nots in litigation have long fascinated scholars, with a long line of research revealing that litigant status often affects litigant resources, experience, and chances of overall success from trial courts to appellate courts. What has received considerably less attention, however, is how this status affects the decision to appeal. Bringing a new perspective to this important area holding implications for the…
Selecting the Select Few: The Discuss List and the U.S. Supreme Court's Agenda‐Setting Process
Objective We investigate whether informational cues differentially affect a petition for review at each stage of the U.S. Supreme Court's agenda‐setting process. We specifically test how the cost of identifying a cue and the degree of information provided within it affect the cue's impact. Methods We use a random sample of archival data obtained from the private papers of Justice Harry A. Blackmun to jointly analyze the Court's discuss list and f…
Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
In this research letter, we examine whether gender and racial bias affect interruption rates at one of the most visible events in American politics: US Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Using original data from 1939 to 2022, we find that male and white participants are more likely to interrupt women and person of color speakers, respectively, relative to male and white speakers. This finding holds for both senators and nominees as interrupters…
Nuclear Fallout: Investigating the Effect of Senate Procedural Reform on Judicial Nominations
On November 21, 2013, U.S. Senate Democrats utilized the long threatened “nuclear option,” thereby allowing a simple-majority of the chamber to end debate on lower federal court judicial nominations. Formal theory predicts that this change should permit the president to nominate more ideologically extreme nominees. By comparing President Obama’s nominees before and after the Senate’s change to the confirmation process, we are able to provide the …
The Role of Law Clerks in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Agenda-Setting Process
Do law clerks influence the decisions made by justices on the U.S. Supreme Court? Although numerous studies of law clerk influence exist, none has controlled for alternative factors that lead a justice to behave in a particular way even absent the actions of the law clerk. Turning to the Court’s agenda-setting stage, we draw from archival materials contained in the private papers of Justice Harry A. Blackmun to address this precise issue. Our res…
Constructing the Supreme Court: How Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Have Affected Presidential Selection and Senate Confirmation Hearings
How the Trump Administration's Quota Policy Transformed Immigration Judging
The Trump administration implemented a controversial performance quota policy for immigration judges in October 2018. The policy's political motivations were clear: to pressure immigration judges to order more immigration removals and deportations as quickly as possible. Previous attempts by U.S. presidents to control immigration judges were ineffective, but this quota policy was different because it credibly threatened judges' job security and p…
Congressional Constraint? The Review of In Absentia Immigration Removal Orders in Federal Circuit Courts
Within the politically charged immigration system in the United States, Congress mandates the entry of in absentia removal orders against immigrants who fail to appear for immigration court hearings. Statutory guidance similarly constrains the ability of appellate courts to overturn those in absentia orders. In this article, we examine how federal circuit court judges make decisions in the review of in absentia orders when faced with discretion-r…
Judicial behavior in disability cases: Do judge sex and race matter
In this short Dialogues contribution, we examine whether the anecdotal evidence about judge identity and decisions in Social Security disability cases from Johnson v. Social Security Administration holds more generally in the federal district courts. To do so, we begin with an introduction to Social Security disability cases, including how they are processed, how they are reviewed by the federal district courts, and why they may provide a strong …
Adjudicatory Oversight and Judicial Decision Making in Executive Branch Agencies
Adjudications are an important, though understudied, means through which administrative agencies create policies that have a lasting impact. We argue that executive branch agency heads utilize their oversight of agency adjudications to advance agency goals. Relying on an original data set of adjudications appealed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s agency head’s adjudication delegee, our empirical results indicate a substantial positive effe…
Untangling the Causal Effects of Sex on Judging
We explore the role of sex in judging by addressing two questions of long‐standing interest to political scientists: whether and in what ways male and female judges decide cases distinctly—“individual effects”—and whether and in what ways serving with a female judge causes males to behave differently—“panel effects.” While we attend to the dominant theoretical accounts of why we might expect to observe either or both effects, we do not use the pr…
The Role of Law Clerks in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Agenda-Setting Process
Do law clerks influence the decisions made by justices on the U.S. Supreme Court? Although numerous studies of law clerk influence exist, none has controlled for alternative factors that lead a justice to behave in a particular way even absent the actions of the law clerk. Turning to the Court’s agenda-setting stage, we draw from archival materials contained in the private papers of Justice Harry A. Blackmun to address this precise issue. Our res…
She’ll Settle It
Relying on research that posits that female leaders and managers will be more likely than men to adopt a management style that favors participation, collaboration, and consensus building, I argue that female district court judges, using this style in their case management environments, should be more likely than their male colleagues to successfully foster intracourt case settlements. To test this, I compile data from nearly 18,000 civil rights a…
Selecting the Select Few: The Discuss List and the U.S. Supreme Court's Agenda‐Setting Process
Objective We investigate whether informational cues differentially affect a petition for review at each stage of the U.S. Supreme Court's agenda‐setting process. We specifically test how the cost of identifying a cue and the degree of information provided within it affect the cue's impact. Methods We use a random sample of archival data obtained from the private papers of Justice Harry A. Blackmun to jointly analyze the Court's discuss list and f…
Adjudicatory Oversight and Judicial Decision Making in Executive Branch Agencies
Adjudications are an important, though understudied, means through which administrative agencies create policies that have a lasting impact. We argue that executive branch agency heads utilize their oversight of agency adjudications to advance agency goals. Relying on an original data set of adjudications appealed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s agency head’s adjudication delegee, our empirical results indicate a substantial positive effe…
Nuclear Fallout: Investigating the Effect of Senate Procedural Reform on Judicial Nominations
On November 21, 2013, U.S. Senate Democrats utilized the long threatened “nuclear option,” thereby allowing a simple-majority of the chamber to end debate on lower federal court judicial nominations. Formal theory predicts that this change should permit the president to nominate more ideologically extreme nominees. By comparing President Obama’s nominees before and after the Senate’s change to the confirmation process, we are able to provide the …
Litigant Status and Trial Court Appeal Mobilization
The advantages held by haves over have nots in litigation have long fascinated scholars, with a long line of research revealing that litigant status often affects litigant resources, experience, and chances of overall success from trial courts to appellate courts. What has received considerably less attention, however, is how this status affects the decision to appeal. Bringing a new perspective to this important area holding implications for the…
Representation on the Courts? The Effects of Trial Judges’ Sex and Race
Scholars have long sought to resolve whether and to what degree political actor diversity influences the outputs of political institutions like legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts. When it comes to the judiciary, diverse judges may greatly affect outcomes. Despite this potential, no consensus exists for whether judicial diversity affects behavior in trial courts—that is, the stage where the vast majority of litigants interact with t…
The Role of Nominee Gender and Race at U.S. Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
We investigate an unexplored aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation process: whether questioning senators treat female and minority nominees differently from male and white nominees. Applying out-group theory, we argue that senators will ask female and minority nominees more questions about their “judicial philosophies” in an effort to determine their competence to serve on the Court. This out-group bias is likely to be exacerbated for nom…
The Political Responsiveness of Violent Crime Prosecution
Is a federal prosecutor’s decision whether to pursue violent crime charges political? While prosecutors frequently assert their decision-making independence, their selection and operational constraints suggest a very different story. We assess whether political factors related to the prosecution priorities of the president, Congress, and the local public affect federal prosecutors’ decisions to pursue or decline charges in violent crime matters. …
Judicial behavior in disability cases: Do judge sex and race matter
In this short Dialogues contribution, we examine whether the anecdotal evidence about judge identity and decisions in Social Security disability cases from Johnson v. Social Security Administration holds more generally in the federal district courts. To do so, we begin with an introduction to Social Security disability cases, including how they are processed, how they are reviewed by the federal district courts, and why they may provide a strong …
The Emerging Authority of Magistrate Judges within US District Courts
The federal judicial system is a hierarchy with district courts at the bottom, courts of appeals in the middle, and the Supreme Court at the top. A second, less visible, judicial hierarchy exists within district courts, with magistrate judges situated below district judges. Existing scholarship largely ignores magistrate judges, assuming they are agents tasked with procedural matters with little independent effect on federal courts adjudication. …
Congressional Constraint? The Review of In Absentia Immigration Removal Orders in Federal Circuit Courts
Within the politically charged immigration system in the United States, Congress mandates the entry of in absentia removal orders against immigrants who fail to appear for immigration court hearings. Statutory guidance similarly constrains the ability of appellate courts to overturn those in absentia orders. In this article, we examine how federal circuit court judges make decisions in the review of in absentia orders when faced with discretion-r…
Constructing the Supreme Court: How Race, Ethnicity, and Gender Have Affected Presidential Selection and Senate Confirmation Hearings
How the Trump Administration's Quota Policy Transformed Immigration Judging
The Trump administration implemented a controversial performance quota policy for immigration judges in October 2018. The policy's political motivations were clear: to pressure immigration judges to order more immigration removals and deportations as quickly as possible. Previous attempts by U.S. presidents to control immigration judges were ineffective, but this quota policy was different because it credibly threatened judges' job security and p…
Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
In this research letter, we examine whether gender and racial bias affect interruption rates at one of the most visible events in American politics: US Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Using original data from 1939 to 2022, we find that male and white participants are more likely to interrupt women and person of color speakers, respectively, relative to male and white speakers. This finding holds for both senators and nominees as interrupters…
Law (16 works) · Political science (16 works) · Judicial and Constitutional Studies (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Supreme court (7 works) · Legal and Constitutional Studies (6 works) · Psychology (6 works)