“Comment on ‘Temperature and Decisions: Evidence from 207,000 Court Cases’”, Holger Spamann2022-10-01 (law, cognitive bias)⁠:

[code; Twitter] Heyes & Saberian2019 estimate from 2000^–₄2004_20ya data that outdoor temperature reduces US immigration judges’ propensity to grant asylum.

This estimate is the result of coding and data errors and of sample selection. Correcting the errors reduces the point estimate by two-thirds, with a wide 95% confidence interval straddling zero. Enlarging the sample to 1990^–₂₉2019 flips the point estimate’s sign and rules out the effect size reported by Heyes and Saberian with very high confidence.

An analysis of all criminal sentencing decisions by US federal district judges 35.9%–59.4% yields no evidence of temperature or other weather effects either.