Last time, we began reviewing the Supreme Court’s civil cases from the First District, tracking the counties in which the cases originated, five years at a time.  Today we’re reviewing the data for the years 2005-2019.

In 2005, the Court decided five cases from San Francisco, two from Alameda and one from Marin.  In 2006, the Court decided six cases from San Francisco, three from Alameda, two from Humboldt and one from San Mateo.  In 2007, the Court decided four civil cases from San Francisco, two from Solano county and one each from Alameda, Contra Costa and San Mateo.  In 2008, the Court decided two cases from San Francisco and one each from Alameda and Humboldt counties.  In 2009, the Court decided two cases from San Francisco and one case each from Alameda, Marin, Mendocino and Sonoma.

In 2010, the Court decided three cases from San Francisco county, two from Alameda and one from Marin, Solano and Sonoma.  In 2011, the Court decided two cases from San Francisco and one each from Alameda and Contra Costa.  The following year, the Court decided two cases from Alameda and one each from San Francisco and San Mateo.  In 2013, the Court decided two cases from San Francisco and one each from Contra Costa and Marin.  In 2014, the Court decided two civil cases from Alameda county and one from San Francisco.

In 2015, the Court decided three civil cases from Alameda and two from San Francisco.  In 2016, the Court decided one case each from Alameda, San Francisco and San Mateo.  The following year, the Court decided three cases from Marin and one each from Contra Costa and San Francisco.  Last year, the Court decided three cases from San Francisco.  So far this year, the Court has decided four civil cases from San Francisco and one from Alameda.

So how do our totals compare to population?  Reviewing them five years at a time, of course there’s no particular reason to believe that the cases which make it to the Supreme Court should reflect the relative population of the District’s counties.  But over the course of thirty years, might the cases from a county become roughly proportional to population, and therefore (presumably) to total appeals coming out of that county?

In the Table below, we compare (1) the percentage of the First District’s total population accounted for by each county to (2) the percentage of total First District civil cases decided by the Supreme Court 1990-2019 which originated in that county.

Alameda accounts for 26.57% of the First District population but has only had 16.3% of the civil cases.  Contra Costa county is 18.45% of the population but only 7.49% of the cases.  San Francisco is 14.16% of the District population but accounted for 45.82% of the cases.  San Mateo was 12.64% of the population, but only 8.37% of the cases.  Three of the less populous counties were “overrepresented” in the sense that they accounted for a higher share of cases than population (the first number in parentheses is the population percentage, the second is the cases): Marin (4.44%; 7.49%), Mendocino (1.55%; 1.76%); and Lake (1.14%; 1.32%).  Five counties were “underrepresented” in the Court’s cases: Sonoma (8.51%; 4.44%); Solano (7.27%; 4.85%); Napa (2.4%; 0.44%) and Humboldt (2.37%; 1.76%).  The smallest county in the First District, Del Norte county, accounts for 0.5% of the total population, but the Court has not decided a single civil case from Del Norte since 1990.

Join us back here next week as we review the criminal docket for the First District.

Image courtesy of Flickr by David Sawyer (no changes).