To illustrate the analysis of noise with multiple cases, we turn to an exceptionally detailed noise audit of sentencing by federal judges. The analysis was published in 1981 as part of the movement toward sentencing reform that we described in chapter 1. The study narrowly focused on sentencing decisions, but the lessons it offers are general and bear on other professional judgments. The goal of the noise audit was to go beyond the vivid but anecdotal evidence of noise assembled by Judge Frankel and others and to “determine the extent of sentencing disparity” more systematically.
