Our next milestone in reviewing the lag time data for death penalty cases is the period from the end of party briefing – the filing of the reply brief – to the filing of the last supplemental or amicus brief (including replies to one or the other). Amicus briefs have been very rare in death penalty cases since 1990, but supplemental briefs are a bit more common.

The average wait was 790.32 days in 1990, 514.69 in 1991, 837.12 in 1992, 636.82 in 1993, 238.2 in 1994, 1,066.17 days in 1995, 1,663.5 days in 1996, 269.33 days in 1997, 261.5 days in 1998 and 378 days in 1999.

There were no amicus/supplemental briefs in death penalty cases in 2001. The average wait was only 58 days in 2000, 335 in 2002, 72.33 in 2003, 749 days in 2004, 439 in 2005, 336.25 days in 2006, 577.75 in 2007, 626 in 2008 and 642.56 days in 2009.

The average wait for supplemental briefing seems to have increased significantly in the past ten years. The wait was 742.1 days in 2010, 1,110.2 in 2011, 1,086.2 in 2012, 972.5 in 2013, 1,419.33 in 2014, 202 days in 2015, 664.33 in 2016, 594.5 in 2017, 1,202.5 in 2018 and 1,613.75 days so far in 2019.

Join us back here tomorrow as we review the data for average waits from the end of briefing (whether the party reply brief or the last amicus/supplemental brief) to oral argument.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Ken Lund (no changes).