Fight like a Woman: Domestic Violence and Female Judges in Brazil

We investigate the impact of judges’ gender on the outcome of domestic violence cases. Using data from São Paulo, Brazil, between 2011 and 2019, we find that a domestic violence case assigned to a female judge is 28% (9.7 p.p.) more likely to result in a conviction than a case assigned to a male judge with similar career characteristics. To show that this decision gap rises due to different gender perspectives about domestic violence and not because female judges are stricter than their male counterparts in all rulings, we compare it against the gender conviction-rate gap in similar types of crime. We find that this gap for domestic violence cases is larger than the same gap for other physical assault cases (8.5 p.p.). Furthermore, we find evidence that at least two channels explain this gender conviction-rate gap for domestic violence cases: gender-based differences in evidence interpretation and gender-based sentencing criteria. We also find that female judges write longer sentences, schedule more hearings, and write more judicial documents than their male peers when analyzing domestic violence cases. Lastly, we find that the gender conviction-rate gap has no significant impact on the probability of appeals, ruling reversals, or recidivism.