This week, we’re continuing our examination of the basic amicus brief filing data with the years 2005 through 2020. Although there was a one-year dip in 2004, for most of the period from 1997 to 2004, between eighty and ninety percent of all civil cases at the California Supreme Court had at least one amicus
This time, we’re looking at amicus filings in California criminal cases. Below, we chart the yearly percentage of criminal cases decided by the Supreme Court which drew at least one amicus brief. The figure started low at only 12.5% in 1990. It topped out at 32.76% in 1992, 48.78% in 1994 and 30.95% in 1996
[For the benefit of readers who don’t read both our Illinois and California blogs, the first paragraph immediately below is reprinted from our first post of this week on the Illinois Supreme Court Review.]
In the past twenty years, several academic researchers have extended the study of amicus briefs to state courts of
Earlier this week, we began a four-part post at the Illinois Supreme Court Review briefly reviewing some of the leading academic literature on the phenomenon of “panel effects” – the theory that appellate panels are a collective decision-maker rather than a group of individual decision-makers, and thus a particular judge’s vote is influenced to some
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,