The following chart shows what happened. Early in the day, judges ruled in favor of prisoners about 65 percent of the time. But as the morning wore on, that rate declined. And by late morning, their favorable rulings dropped to nearly zero. So a prisoner slotted for a 9 a.m. hearing was likely to get parole while one slotted for 11:45 a.m. had essentially no chance at all—regardless of the facts of the case. Put another way, since the default decision on boards is typically not to grant parole, judges deviated from the status quo during some hours and reinforced it during others.
