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Kirk Jenkins brings a wealth of experience to his appellate practice, which focuses on antitrust and constitutional law, as well as products liability, RICO, price fixing, information sharing among competitors and class certification. In addition to handling appeals, he also regularly works with trial teams to ensure that important issues are properly presented and preserved for appellate review.  Mr. Jenkins is a pioneer in the application of data analytics to appellate decision-making and writes two analytics blogs, the California Supreme Court Review and the Illinois Supreme Court Review, as well as regularly writing for various legal publications.

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Last week, we began addressing the issue of the average lag time from grant of review to oral argument and from argument to decision, analyzing the data for the civil and criminal dockets from 2000 to 2007.  This week, we’ll address the data for 2008 through 2016, beginning today with the civil docket.

There is

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Yesterday, we analyzed the average lag time from grant of review to oral argument, and oral argument to decision, in civil cases between 2000 and 2007.  Today, we turn our attention to the Court’s criminal docket for the same years.

For the entire period, the average lag time from grant of review to oral argument

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This week, we begin a new phase of our analysis: how long does the average case remain pending at the California Supreme Court from grant of review to oral argument to decision, and what are the differences between civil, criminal and death penalty cases?

In Table 167 below, we report the mean number of days,

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Last week, we reviewed the frequency with which pro tem Supreme Court Justices voted with the Court’s majority in criminal cases between 2000 and 2007.  Today, we review the same data between 2008 and 2016.

Seventy-eight pro tem votes were filed between 2008 and 2016.  For the period, 92.31% of the votes among pro tem

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Last week, we analyzed how the voting patterns of the Court’s pro tem Justices differed from the permanent members of the Court in civil cases.  This week, we’ll be looking at the voting patterns in criminal cases between 2000 and 2015.

Between 2000 and 2007, forty votes were cast by pro tem Justices in criminal

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For the past few weeks, we’ve been taking a close look at the California Supreme Court’s automatic death penalty appeals docket.  Yesterday, we calculated the average time from appointment of counsel to the scheduled oral argument and looked at whether the total time under submission told us anything about what the ultimate result would be.