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 S\~ao Paulo, Brazil, between 2010 and 2019, we compare conviction rates by judge's gender and find that a domestic violence case assigned to a female judge is 31\% (10 p.p.) more likely to result in 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 the gender conviction-rate gap for domestic violence cases is significantly larger than the same gap for other misdemeanor cases (3 p.p. larger) and for other physical assault cases (8 p.p. larger). 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. Lastly, we find that this gender conviction rate has no significant impact on the probability of appeals, ruling reversals or recidivism.