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Ethan Boldt

@eboldtprof.bsky.social
99 followers 123 following 5 posts

Assistant Prof. of Political Science at UMass Boston. Studying federal criminal justice decision-making, courts, and law. Views my own.

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Ethan Boldt @eboldtprof.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Are Biden's judicial appointees akin to Merrick Garland in their treatment of Trump-aligned defendants? We studied the sentencing decisions of all Jan 6 insurrection defendants. To our surprise, we found that they were less likely to impose prison and gave shorter sentence lengths.
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Ethan Boldt @eboldtprof.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
Contrary to our expectations, Trump's appointees were not distinct from the other judges of the D.D.C. However, we find that Biden's appointed judges in the district were consistently more lenient than those of other presidents (Trump, Obama, Bush II, Clinton, & Reagan) across multiple models.
Effects of appointing president relative to a Trump-appointed judge on January 6 defendant's probability of receiving imprisonment. Biden-appointed judges were significantly less likely to incarcerate than their colleagues.Effects of appointing president relative to a Trump-appointed judge on January 6 defendant's sentence length. Biden-appointed judges gave significantly shorter prison sentences than their colleagues.
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