Today, we’re dissecting the reversal rate in criminal cases from Division 1 of the Second District. The following areas of law were the biggest players on the criminal docket in terms of cases which went to the Supreme Court: constitutional law (23.53%); criminal procedure (20.59%); sentencing (14.71%); and violent crimes (11.76%).
The overall reversal rate
The last couple of weeks, we’ve looked at reversal rates for the Court of Appeal in cases at the Supreme Court. But the difficulty which few people talk about is that reversal rates are nearly always a composite statistic – either “all cases,” or at most all civil cases or all criminal. But mathematically, a
Last time, we reviewed reversal rates in criminal cases from the Divisions of Los Angeles’ Second District. Today, we’re looking at the rest of the state – San Francisco’s First District, Divisions One through Five, the Third District, District Four, Divisions One, Two and Three, and the Fifth and Sixth Districts.
Division 2 of the
Last week, we reviewed reversal rates for the Court of Appeal in civil cases. This week, we’re looking at the criminal side of the docket. First up – the Divisions of the Second District.
Division One has fared the worst since 1990, with a reversal rate in criminal cases of 73.53%. Division Six was close
This time, we’re reviewing the reversal rates in civil cases from 1990 to 2020 for the areas of California outside of Los Angeles’ Second District – the First District (San Francisco) and the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Districts.
Division 4 of the First District had the worst reversal rate in this group – 74.07%.
This week, we’re beginning a detailed look at the reversal rates, District by District and Division by Division, for the Court of Appeal in the Supreme Court. First up, reversal rates for Los Angeles’ Second District.
Between 1990 and 2020, Division Four of the Second District had the highest reversal rate at 68.18%. Division One
Last time, we reviewed the Court’s civil cases, asking whether divided decisions from the Court of Appeal were more likely to be reversed in whole or in part than unanimous ones. This time, we’re turning our attention to the criminal cases and finding a very different result.
In only four of the past thirty-one years
Two weeks ago, we addressed the question of how common cases with a dissent at the Court of Appeal were on the Supreme Court’s docket. Our analysis illuminated the issue of whether it’s true that there’s no point in pursuing a petition for review from a unanimous Court of Appeal decision.
This week, we’re digging
Last time, we reviewed the share of the Supreme Court’s civil caseload made up of decisions with a dissenter at the Court of Appeal. Now let’s look at the criminal cases.
It turns out dissenters are even less important on the criminal side. In 1990, only 1.25% of the criminal docket had a dissenter below.
Last week we looked at the frequently heard claim that getting Supreme Court review of an unpublished decision of the Court of Appeal is a hopeless task. This week, we’re looking at a similar bit of conventional wisdom – the Supreme Court doesn’t review unanimous decisions from the Court of Appeal.
In the table below,