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.
Last week, we continued our analysis of the California Supreme Court’s death penalty docket, tracing the number of cases which the Court decides every year, the fraction of the docket that’s decided unanimously, and the frequency with which the Court reverses in part or outright. Today we turn our attention to a controversial topic: how
Last week, we reviewed the primary theories of judicial decision making, including two – attitudinalism and legal realism – which are the foundation for empirical research into appellate decision making. Today, we begin our review of the data.
Between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2015, the California Supreme Court published 1,602 decisions – 636