For decades, researchers have studied the relationship between the political leanings of judges and the outcomes of appellate litigation in the United States. The primary source of data for this research has been published judicial opinions that describe cases and their outcomes. However, only a relatively small number of cases result in published opinions, and this sample of cases may be subject to serious biases. Based on computational text analysis of over 150,000 published opinions issued by federal appellate courts in the years 1970–2010, we find strong evidence of data bias based on relationships between the party affiliations of judges on appellate court panels and the characteristics of cases that result in published opinions. These relationships imply that the inferential model that underlies much of the judicial politics literature can lead to biased or spurious findings concerning the causal influence of judicial attributes on case outcomes.

中文翻译：

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美国上诉法院发表的意见中存在的数据偏差问题

几十年来，研究人员研究了美国法官的政治倾向与上诉诉讼结果之间的关系。这项研究的主要数据来源已经发布了描述案件及其结果的司法观点。但是，只有相对少数的案例会导致发表意见，并且该案例样本可能会受到严重的偏见。通过对1970-2010年间联邦上诉法院发布的超过150,000项发表的意见进行计算文本分析，我们发现强有力的证据表明，基于上诉法院小组中法官的党派关系与所导致案件的特征之间的关系，存在数据偏见。发表的意见。