This time, we’re concluding our six-part post on the tenure of Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar with a look at the subjects of his majority and dissenting opinions in criminal, quasi-criminal, juvenile justice and mental health cases.
Not surprisingly, the most frequent topic of Justice Cuéllar’s majority opinions in criminal cases was death penalty law. He wrote
This week, we’re reviewing the written opinions of Justice Cuéllar’s seven-year tenure. The most frequent topics for his majority opinions in civil cases were government and administrative law and civil procedure, with six opinions each. Justice Cuéllar wrote two government and administrative law majority opinions in 2016 and 2018 and one each in 2019 and
Today, we’re reviewing the contents of our database, which includes every case decided by the California Supreme Court since January 8, 1990. For every case, we’ve captured the following data points:
CIVIL CASES:
Official Reporter Citation
California Reporter Citation
Docket Number
Case Name
Petitioner
Petitioner Governmental Entity (Y/N)
Respondent Governmental Entity (Y/N)
Source of Appellate
Last time, we began our analysis by addressing the competing theories of judicial behavior. Formalism, the oldest theory, teaches that judicial decision making can be explained and predicted based upon the facts, the applicable law and precedent and judicial deliberations – and nothing more. But if formalism explains all of judicial decision making, then many
Our latest repost:
We begin our analysis by addressing the foundation of the entire body of data analytic scholarship on appellate judging: competing theories of judicial decision making.
The oldest theory by far is generally known in the literature as “formalism.” This is the theory we all learned in law school, according to which every
Our short series of contextual reposts continues:
Although the state Supreme Courts have not attracted anything near the level of study from academics engaged in empirical legal studies that the U.S. Supreme Courts and Federal Circuits have a number of different researchers have attempted to compare how influential the various state courts are for the
I’m always surprised when I encounter litigators who dismiss litigation analytics as a passing fad. In fact, as shown in the reprint post below, it’s a century-long academic enterprise which has produced many hundreds of studies conclusively proving through tens of thousands of pages of analysis the value of data analytics in better understanding how
The Illinois Supreme Court Review recently marked its sixth anniversary. In April, this blog turns five.
So I thought it was time for a first: cross-posted reprints from the earliest days of the blogs. My early attempts to provide context for the work and to answer the question I often heard in those days: “Interesting,
Between 2005 and 2019, the Supreme Court decided 53 civil constitutional law cases. Thirty-two of those cases involved challenges to state government actions. Ten cases involved claims of individual rights. Seven cases involved civil procedure and judicial issues. Finally, four cases related to challenges to local government actions.
Join us back here next Thursday as
In the past two weeks, we’ve taken a deeper look at the Supreme Court’s cases in two areas of law, asking which sub-areas those cases fall in. Today, we’re moving on to another subject – civil constitutional law cases.
Between 1990 and 2004, the Supreme Court decided ninety-six civil constitutional law cases. Just short of