Ten of the 12 U.S. courts of appeals regularly invite district court judges to take part in appellate decisions. This practice, known as “sitting by designation,” has received mixed reviews from judges and scholars. Some argue that the practice undermines democratic legitimacy and collegiality on the courts of appeals. Others contend that district court judges sitting by designation have little effect on the process because they are deferential—perhaps far too deferential—toward their circuit court brethren. Despite this ongoing debate, few studies have empirically analyzed the effects of judges sitting by designation on appellate court decision making. Here, we empirically assess whether panels that include a judge sitting by designation are more likely to affirm the district court decision. We hypothesize that judges sitting by designation are more likely to affirm district court decisions, and the panel effects associated with a judge sitting on a circuit panel will result in more “affirm” votes by circuit court judges sitting with those district court judges. Our analysis of 9,154 court of appeals decisions confirms that the presence of a judge sitting by designation does have a positive and statistically significant effect on the rate at which court of appeals judges vote to affirm district court decisions.

中文翻译：

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肯定区域法官：区域法官指定席位对巡回法庭小组的影响的实证分析

美国 12 个上诉法院中有 10 个定期邀请地区法院法官参与上诉裁决。这种被称为“按指定坐着”的做法受到了法官和学者的褒贬不一的评价。一些人认为，这种做法破坏了上诉法院的民主合法性和合议性。其他人争辩说，指定的地区法院法官对这一过程几乎没有影响，因为他们对巡回法院的兄弟们是恭顺的——也许是过于恭顺了。尽管存在这种持续的争论，但很少有研究对指定法官对上诉法院决策的影响进行实证分析。在这里，我们凭经验评估包括指定法官在内的小组是否更有可能确认地区法院的决定。我们假设按指定开庭的法官更有可能肯定地区法院的决定，与开庭的法官相关的小组效应将导致与这些地区法院法官同坐的巡回法院法官投出更多的“肯定”票。我们对 9,154 份上诉法院判决的分析证实，指定的法官在场确实对上诉法院法官投票支持地区法院判决的比率具有积极且具有统计意义的影响。