Judicial behavior after a change of regime: The effects of judge and defendant characteristics

This article examines the determinants of judicial behavior in the context of transition. It tests two assumptions: first, that the judges with experience from the pretransition criminal justice system behave differently from the judges with no such experience; second, that minorities aie discriminated against due to their dominant position in society before the transition and stereotypical attitudes after the transition. Using evidence from trial-level courts in Estonia, we find no statistically significant eftects between case outcomes, the experience of the judge, and the ethnicity of the suspect.