When Advocates Become Adjudicators: Tracing the Effects of Prosecutorial and Public Defense Experience on Judicial Decision Making

We assess the influence professional background – specifically, having been a prosecutor or a public defender – exerts on decision making by federal district court judges. Focusing on search and seizure cases, we analyze nearly 1500 motions to suppress evidence from 2000 to 2022. In addition to controlling for judicial ideology and a judge’s prior experience as a prosecutor or public defender, we utilize matching to address endogeneity concerns related to one’s ability to self-select into one of these positions—which may itself be influenced by that individual’s ideological predispositions. We find that having been a former prosecutor, as well as the length of time that service spans, makes a judge significantly more likely to rule against a motion to suppress. Former public defenders are significantly more likely to grant that suppression motion, though their propensity to do so is not affected by the length of time served in that capacity.