In 2004, a Dutch-Moroccan Islamic extremist in Amsterdam brutally murdered Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker known for his critique of Islam. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we show that, in Amsterdam, the assassination resulted in more than a 19-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of prosecution for unrelated violent crimes of male suspects born in Muslim-majority countries. The effect is detectable during the first month following the murder but dissipates thereafter. We find no evidence of the murder's effect for nonviolent crimes and for violent crimes processed by other Dutch prosecution offices. Our findings are thus not consistent with a purely emotions-based explanation of the murder's effect. Instead, our results are congruent with both a signaling explanation, whereby career-motivated prosecutors chose to showcase their toughness, and a behavioral explanation entailing prosecutors' susceptibility to availability heuristic bias. On institutional grounds, we view the latter as more plausible than the former. Our article adds to an emerging literature demonstrating that extraneous events can critically shape criminal justice outcomes.

中文翻译：

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起诉还是迫害？无关事件和检控决定

2004 年，一名荷兰裔摩洛哥伊斯兰极端分子在阿姆斯特丹残忍地杀害了以批判伊斯兰教而闻名的荷兰电影制片人西奥·梵高。使用差异中的差异方法，我们表明，在阿姆斯特丹，暗杀导致对出生在穆斯林占多数的国家的男性嫌疑人的无关暴力犯罪被起诉的可能性增加了 19 个百分点以上。在谋杀后的第一个月内可以检测到这种影响，但此后就会消散。我们没有发现谋杀对非暴力犯罪和其他荷兰检察机关处理的暴力犯罪的影响的证据。因此，我们的发现与对谋杀影响的纯粹基于情绪的解释不一致。相反，我们的结果与信号解释一致，职业动机的检察官选择展示他们的强硬，以及一种行为解释，即检察官对可用性启发式偏见的敏感性。在制度方面，我们认为后者比前者更合理。我们的文章补充了新兴文献，证明无关事件可以严重影响刑事司法结果。