Chapter 4 Introduction to Probability

Case Problem: Hamilton County Judges

The following is the analysis of the question. 1. The probability of an appeal is .0401for Common Pleas Court. For the Domestic Relations Court, the probability of an appeal is .00348; and for Municipal Court, the probability of an appeal is . 00461. The unconditional probability of an appeal across all 3 courts is (1762 + 106 + 500)/(43,945 + 30,499 + 108,464) = .0129. Appeals are likely to occur in Common Pleas Court. Only 1 in 25 cases are appealed. 2. Described in Column 5 of the table. Judge Winkler has the lowest probability for Common Pleas, Judge Panioto has the lowest probability of appeal for Domestic Relations and Judge Grady has the lowest probability of Municipal Courts. The probability of a case being reversed is described in column 7 of the table. Judges Winkler has the lowest probability of reversal for Common Pleas, Judge Panioto has the lowest probability for appeal in Domestic Relations and Judge Hair has the lowest in Municipal Courts respectively. The probability of a reversal given an appeal for each judge is given in column 9 of the table. Judge Nurre has the lowest probability of reversal for Common Pleas, Judge Panioto has the lowest probability of reversal for Domestic Relations and Judge Grady/Hair has the lowest probability of reversal for Municipal Courts. We describe here how The Cincinnati Enquirer used this data to rank the judges. Other methodologies may also be valid, but a rationale should be provided. The newspaper provided ranking for each judge within each of the courts on the basis of percentage of cases appealed, percentage of cases reversed and percentage of appealed cases reversed. Those rankings were the same as the ones we have computed based on probabilities in columns 6, 8 and 10 of the table. Then the 3 rankings were summed to come up with a total ranking for each judge. We provide those total ranks in column 11 of the table. Judge Winkler is the highest ranked judge in Common Pleas Court, Judge Panioto is the highest ranked judge in Domestic Relations Court and Judge Grady is the highest ranked judge in Municipal Court.

3.

4.

5.

Common Pleas Court Total Cases Disposed

Appealed Cases

Reversed Cases

Conditional Probability of Reversal Given Appeal

Judge Fred Cartolano Thomas Crush Patrick Dinkelacker Timothy Hogan Robert Kraft William Mathews William Morrissey Norbert Nadel Arthur Ney, Jr. Richard Niehaus Thomas Nurre John O'Connor Robert Ruehlman J. Howard Sundermann Jr. Ann Marie Tracey Ralph Winkler Total

3037 137 3372 119 1258 44 1954 60 3138 127 2264 91 3032 121 2959 131 3219 125 3353 137 3000 121 2969 129 3205 145 955 60 3141 127 3089 88 43945 1762

12 10 8 7 7 18 22 20 14 16 6 12 18 10 13 6 199

0.04511 0.03529 0.03498 0.03071 0.04047 0.04019 0.03991 0.04427 0.03883 0.04086 0.04033 0.04345 0.04524 0.06283 0.04043 0.02849 0.0401

14 4 3 2 10 7 6 13 5 11 8 12 15 16 9 1

0.00395 0.00297 0.00636 0.00358 0.00223 0.00795 0.00726 0.00676 0.00435 0.00477 0.00200 0.00404 0.00562 0.01047 0.00414 0.00194 0.00453

6 4 12 5 3 15 14 13 9 10 2 7 11 16 8 1

0.08759 0.08403 0.18182 0.11667 0.05512 0.19780 0.18182 0.15267 0.11200 0.11679 0.04959 0.09302 0.12414 0.16667 0.10236 0.06818 0.11294

5 4 14 9 2 16 14 12 8 10 1 6 11 13 7 3

Domestic Relations Court Total Cases Disposed

Appealed Cases

Reversed Cases

Conditional Probability of Reversal Given Appeal

Judge

Penelope Cunningham 2729 Patrick Dinkelacker 6001 Deborah Gaines 8799 Ronald Panioto 12970 Total 30499

7 19 48 32 106

1 4 9 3 17

0.00257 0.00317 0.00546 0.00247 0.00348

2 3 4 1

0.00037 0.00067 0.00102 0.00023 0.00056

2 3 4 1

0.14286 0.21053 0.18750 0.09375 0.16038

2 4 3 1

Sum of Ranks 6 10 11 3

Probability of Appeal

Probability of Reversal

Rank

Rank

Rank

Sum of Ranks 25 12 29 16 15 38 34 38 22 31 11 25 37 45 24 5

Probability of Appeal

Probability of Reversal

Rank

Rank

Rank

Municipal Court Total Cases Disposed

Appealed Cases

Reversed Cases

Conditional Probability of Reversal Given Appeal

Judge Mike Allen Nadine Allen Timothy Black David Davis Leslie Isaiah Gaines Karla Grady Deidra Hair Dennis Helmick Timothy Hogan James Patrick Kenney Joseph Luebbers William Mallory Melba Marsh Beth Mattingly Albert Mestemaker Mark Painter Jack Rosen Mark Schweikert David Stockdale John A. West

6149 7812 7954 7736 5282 5253 2532 7900 2308 2798 4698 8277 8219 2971 4975 2239 7790 5403 5371 2797 Total 108464

43 34 41 43 35 6 5 29 13 6 25 38 34 13 28 7 41 33 22 4 500

4 6 6 5 13 0 0 5 2 1 8 9 7 1 9 3 13 6 4 2 104

0.00699 0.00435 0.00515 0.00556 0.00663 0.00114 0.00197 0.00367 0.00563 0.00214 0.00532 0.00459 0.00414 0.00438 0.00563 0.00313 0.00526 0.00611 0.00410 0.00143 0.00461

20 9 12 15 19 1 3 6 17 4 14 11 8 10 16 5 13 18 7 2

0.00065 0.00077 0.00075 0.00065 0.00246 0.00000 0.00000 0.00063 0.00087 0.00036 0.00170 0.00109 0.00085 0.00034 0.00181 0.00134 0.00167 0.00111 0.00074 0.00072 0.00096

7 11 10 6 20 1 1 5 13 4 18 14 12 3 19 16 17 15 9 8

0.09302 0.17647 0.14634 0.11628 0.37143 0.00000 0.00000 0.17241 0.15385 0.16667 0.32000 0.23684 0.20588 0.07692 0.32143 0.42857 0.31707 0.18182 0.18182 0.50000 0.20800

4 10 6 5 18 1 1 9 7 8 16 14 13 3 17 19 15 11 11 20

Sum of Ranks 31 30 28 26 57 3 5 20 37 16 48 39 33 16 52 40 45 44 27 30

Probability of Appeal

Probability of Reversal

Rank

Rank

Rank