Sleepy Punishers Are Harsh Punishers: Daylight Saving Time and Legal Sentences by Kyoungmin Cho, Christopher Barnes, and Cristiano Guanara

Abstract: The degree of punishment assigned to criminals is of pivotal importance for the maintenance of social order and cooperation.  Nonetheless, the amount of punishment assigned to transgressors can be affected by factors other than the content of the transgressions.  We propose that sleep deprivation in judges increases the severity of their sentences.  We took advantage of the natural quasi-manipulation of sleep deprivation during the shift to daylight saving time in the spring and analyzed archival data from judicial punishment handed out in the U.S. federal courts. The results supported our hypothesis: Judges doled out longer sentences when they were sleep deprived.

Are Sleepy Punishers Really Harsh Punishers?: Comment by Holger Spamann

Abstract: This comment points out four severe reservations regarding Cho et al.’s (PS 2017) finding that U.S. federal judges punish more harshly on “sleepy Mondays,” the Mondays after the start of Daylights Savings Time. First, Cho et al.’s finding pertains to only one of at least two dimensions of harshness, and the opposite result obtains in the second dimension. Second, even within the first dimension, Cho et al.’s result is statistically significant only because of a variable transformation and sample restrictions that are neither transparent in the article nor theoretically sound. Third, reanalysis of the data with superior methods reveals no significant “sleepy Monday” effect in the years 1992- 2003. Fourth, sentences were on average shorter on “sleepy Mondays” out of sample, namely in 2004-2016.

If you read all of the recent academic studies on judges…and sleep on it…it is possible that you will achieve the goal of getting adequate rest.