As shown in Table 1591, the percentage of the Court’s criminal docket accounted for by final judgments and death penalty appeals remained quite high throughout the years 2010-2020. In 2010, 60.27% of the docket was either from final judgments or death cases. That rose into the seventies from 2011 to 2013 before falling back a
For the past two weeks, we’ve been comparing the data for appeals from final judgments to the Court’s total caseload, addressing the notion that the Court is reluctant to get involved in cases which have not yet reached final judgment. This time, we’re looking at the civil docket for the years 2010 through 2020.
The
Between 2000 and 2009, the share of the Court’s criminal docket accounted for by non-death final judgments edged downwards, from 47.27% in 2000 and 55.17% in 2001 to 34.43% in 2005 and only 26.23% in 2007.
A large part of the reason for that was the increase in death penalty cases. When we add the
During the years 2000 through 2009, the percentage of the Supreme Court’s drifted down slightly. The decade high came in 2000, when 75.51% of the Court’s civil cases were from final judgments. That share fell seventeen points in 2001 before recovering a bit to 64.58% in 2002. In 2004, 60.38% of the civil docket were
So what percentage of criminal cases arise from final judgments? This time, we’re reviewing the data from the years 1990 through 1999. Since a substantial fraction of the court’s criminal cases come from death penalty appeals, we include both final judgments and death penalty cases.
Between 1990 and 1992, the percentage of final judgments in
We’ve all heard it any number of times: the appellate courts only review final judgments. Even if you can figure out a theory to take a non-final judgment up, the appellate courts won’t decide it on the grounds that it isn’t necessary – let it percolate out, and maybe the case will settle, or the
From 2010 to 2020, a dissenter at the Court of Appeal was a very strong indicator that reversal was likely in criminal cases at the Supreme Court. Overall, divided decisions were reversed at nearly double the rate of unanimous ones: 75.51% to 41.48%. Divided decisions were more likely to be reversed than unanimous ones in
For the past two weeks, we’ve been continuing our study of the dissent rate at the Court of Appeal by comparing the rate of dissent in the Supreme Court’s cases at the Court of Appeal to the reversal rate at the Supreme Court. To put it another way: is a dissent below an indication that
For the years 2000 through 2009, a dissent at the Court of Appeal was nearly as strong an indicator of likely reversal in criminal cases as it had been in the preceding decade. Between 2000 and 2009, 70.27% of cases with a dissent below were reversed, in whole or in part, at the Supreme Court.
Between 2000 and 2009, a dissent at the Court of Appeal was a moderately strong indication that a reversal was more likely at the Supreme Court in civil cases. For the ten year period, 68.33% of cases with a dissent below were reversed at the Supreme Court, while 56.1% of cases decided unanimously at the