Today, we begin the second phase of our review of the Justices’ individual voting records.  The percentage of the time a particular Justice votes in the majority and the minority is one measure of to what degree she or he is in philosophical sync with the rest of the Court.  When applied to a Chief Justice, it is also arguably a measure of the Chief’s influence on the rest of the Court.  Today, we begin our review with Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye.

From joining the Court through the end of 2020, Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye had voted in 312 civil cases.  She was in the minority for only 12 of those 312 cases – 3.85% of the total.  Interestingly, her percentage in the minority has ticked up a bit in the past two years as the percentage of Democratic nominee Justices has increased.  The arrival of Justices Cuellar and Kruger has little effect on the Chief’s minority percentage – she was in the minority in 3.13% of civil cases in 2015, 5.56% in 2016, 2.44% in 2017 and 3.03% in 2018.  But then in 2019, the Chief had her most civil minority votes since joining the Court – three votes, or 8.82% for the year.  This past year, the Chief Justice was in the minority in 2 of 29 cases – 6.9% of the total.  Since the beginning of 2019, the Chief Justice has been in the minority in 7.94% of civil cases.

Join us back here next Thursday as we continue our examination of the Justices’ minority percentages.

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Today we’re concluding our initial review of the Justices’ voting records by reviewing Justice Cuellar and Justice Groban.

Since joining the Court in 2015, Justice Cuellar has voted in 201 civil cases.  He has voted in affirm in 73 cases and to reverse 90 times.  Those votes show a curious time pattern: in 2015 and 2016, his votes to reverse outpaced his votes to affirm by eight, and in 2017 and 2018, he voted to affirm eight times more than to reverse.  So the entire 17-vote margin between affirm and reverse for his term comes from 2019 and 2020.

Justice Cuellar has cast 17 split votes to affirm in part and reverse/vacate/modify in part.  He has voted to deny once, to grant four times, to vacate twice, and has cast 14 “other” votes – nearly all in certified question appeals from the Ninth Circuit.

Since joining the Supreme Court in 2019, Justice Groban has voted in 54 civil cases.  He has voted to affirm only 11 times – 20.37% of his total caseload – and voted to reverse completely in 31 cases (57.41%).  He has cast three split votes, two votes to grant and seven “other.”

Join us back here tomorrow as we discuss how often Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye has voted in the minority in civil cases.

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Justice Leondra R. Kruger took her seat on the Court on January 5, 2015.  Between that time and the end of 2020, she had voted in precisely 200 civil cases.  She has voted to affirm in only 63 of those cases, or 31.5% of the total.  She had voted to reverse in full 95 times, for 47.5%.  There are no clear time trends in those totals.

Justice Kruger has cast split votes to affirm in part and reverse/vacate/modify in part in 21 cases.  She has voted to grant 3 times and to deny and vacate 2 times (each).  Finally, she has cast 14 “other” votes, nearly all of them in certified question appeals from the Ninth Circuit.

 

Join us back here next week as we continue our examination of the Justices’ voting records.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Karen Borter (no changes).

Today, we’re turning our attention to our initial examination of Justice Liu’s voting record.

Justice Goodwin Liu took his seat on the Court on September 1, 2011.  Since that time, he has voted in 292 civil cases.  The distribution of his votes is similar to the Chief Justice and Justice Corrigan.  From 2011 through the end of 2020, Justice Liu has voted to affirm in 97 civil cases, or 33.22% of his total, and voted to reverse in 142 cases – 48.63%.  He has cast 24 split votes to affirm in part and reverse/vacate/modify in part, 3 votes each to deny and grant, 2 votes to vacate and 21 “other” – nearly all in certified question cases from the Ninth Circuit.

Join us back here tomorrow as we begin our review of Justice Kruger’s voting record.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Doug Kerr (no changes).

 

Today, we’re examining the Chief Justice’s voting record in civil cases.

Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye took her seat on January 3, 2011.  Since that time, she has voted in 312 civil cases.  Consistent with the slight uptick in the Court’s production in civil cases in the second half of the Chief Justice’s tenure, she cast 139 votes in civil cases from 2011 to 2015 and 173 votes from 2016 through the end of 2020.  She has voted to affirm in 105 cases – 33.65% of her total – and to reverse in 154 cases – 49.36%.  She has cast split votes to affirm in part and reverse/vacate/modify in part in 22 cases.  She has voted to deny 3 times, to grant 3 times, to vacate twice and cast 23 “other” votes – mostly in certified question cases from the Ninth Circuit.

Join us back here next week as we continue our review of the individual Justices’ voting records.

Image courtesy of Pixabay by sdnet01 (no changes).

 

This week, we’re beginning a more detailed examination of the individual Justices’ voting records.  We start with Justice Corrigan’s record in civil cases.

With the retirement of Justice Chin, Justice Corrigan is now the senior Associate Justice on the Court.  Since joining the Court in 2006, she has voted in 535 civil cases.  Although the Court’s docket has drifted downwards a bit since 2006, her votes are relatively evenly distributed: she voted in an average of 38.63 cases per year from 2006 to 2013 and 32.29 from 2014 to 2020.  Justice Corrigan has voted to reverse outright in just short of half her cases – 267 votes, or 49.91% of the total.  She has cast 179 votes to affirm.  There are no clear time trends; Justice Corrigan has predominantly voted to reverse throughout her tenure.

She has cast 44 split votes to affirm in part and reverse/vacate/modify in part.  She has cast 4 votes to deny, 3 to grant, 3 to vacate and 35 “other” – almost entirely certified questions from the Ninth Circuit.

Join us back here next time as we turn our attention to the Chief Justice.

Image courtesy of Pixabay by ArtTower (no changes).

 

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 in Division One was 73.53%.  All three of the highest producers on the criminal side had reversal rates well above that overall average.  The reversal rate in constitutional law was 87.5%.  The rate in criminal procedure was 85.71%.  Eighty percent of the sentencing decisions reviewed were reversed.  Only violent crimes decisions fared well, with a reversal rate of 50%.  Aside from violent crimes, only two areas of law were under the overall reversal rate – juvenile justice (50%) and property crimes (0%).

So the evidence seems relatively clear: the reversal rate in Division One appears to have been driven since 1990 by disagreement in specific areas of law: constitutional, criminal procedure, and to a lesser extent, sentencing law.

Image courtesy of Pixabay by 12019 (no changes).

 

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 high reversal rate can be explained by one of two results: (1) a very high rate in a couple of areas of law, and far lower rates in other areas; or (2) reversal rates around the baseline composite rate in a host of different areas.  The difference makes a difference: ten years ago, the reversal rate at the Ninth Circuit became a political football.  So was the Ninth Circuit supposedly out of step with the Supreme Court across the board?  Or was the rate driven by serious disagreements in just a few areas?

This week, we’re splitting up the highest reversal rates at the Court of Appeal by areas of law: Division 4 of the First District (civil cases) and Division 1 of the Second District (criminal cases).

First, we review the civil cases from Division 4 of the First District by area of law.  One-quarter of the cases between 1990 and 2020 were tort – 25.93%, to be precise.  Civil procedure accounted for 16.67% of the cases, employment law was 11.11%, and constitutional law and government/administrative law accounted for 9.26% each.  The remaining areas of law were minor players, contributing only an occasional case.

Overall, the reversal rate for Division 4 for these years in civil cases was 74.07%.  In the Table, we report the reversal rate for cases in each area of law.

The reversal rate in tort law was 78.57% – not much above the overall rate.  The reversal rate in civil procedure cases was below the court-wide average: 66.67%.  Employment law was below average too: 50%.  Rather than being driven by a very high reversal rate in one particular subject, Division Four’s reversal rate was driven by very high rates in areas which contributed only a minimal number of cases to the docket.  Constitutional law, government and administrative law and tax law each accounted for less than 10% of the Court’s cases, but taken together, they are 25.93% of the total.  And the reversal rate in each of these three areas was significantly above the Court’s average: the rate for government and administrative law and tax law was 100%, and 80% of the constitutional law decisions were reversed.

Join us next time as we turn our attention to the criminal docket.

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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 First District has had the hardest time over the entire period, with a reversal rate of 72.41%.  Division 3 of the Fourth District is close behind at 69.77%.  The Sixth District has a reversal rate of 61.7%.  Division 5 of the First had a reversal rate of 58.06%, and Division 1 of the Fourth was at 57.8%.  Division 2 of the Fourth District had a reversal rate of 55.13%.  The Fifth District was at 54.22%.  The Third District fared best, with a reversal rate of 53%.

Division 1 of the Fourth District had the most criminal cases on the Court’s docket, 109.  The Third District was next with 100 cases.  The Sixth District had 94 cases, Division 3 of the Fourth had 86 and the Fifth District had 83.  Division Two of the Fourth District had 78 cases.  Collectively, the First District had 134 cases split among its five Divisions – 31 in Division 5, 29 each in Divisions 2 and 4, 27 cases in Division 3 and 18 in Division 1.

Between 1990 and 1999, 85.71% of Division 3 of the Fourth District’s criminal cases were reversed.  Division 2 of the First District was at 83.33%.  Division 5 of the First District had a 70% reversal rate.  The Sixth District had a reversal rate of 61.76% and the Third District and Division 1 of the Fourth were at 60%.  The Fifth District had a reversal rate for the decade of 57.69%.  Division 3 of the First was at 53.85%, and the reversal rate for Division 2 of the Fourth District was an even 50%.  The reversal rate for Division 4 of the First District was 40%.  Division 1 of the First District fared best, with a reversal rate of only 28.57%.

The highest reversal rates between 2000 and 2009 in this group of courts were Division 2 of the First District (66.67%) and Division 3 of the Fourth (64.52%).  The Fifth District had a reversal rate of 55.56%.  The reversal rate in the Third District was 55.32%.  The reversal rate in the Sixth District was 54.55%.

Division 1 of the Fourth District had a reversal rate for the period of 48.65%.  Division 4 of the First District was 46.67%.  Division 5 of the First District was at 45.45%.  Division 2 of the Fourth District had a reversal rate of 40.91%.  Divisions 1 and 3 of the First District had a superb decade, with a 16.67% reversal rate in Division 1 and only 12.5% in Division 3.

Division 2 of the First District posted the worst reversal rate from 2010 to 2020 – 72.73%.  The Sixth District was 70.37%.  The reversal rate for both Division Three of the First District and Division Two of the Fourth was two-thirds.  The rate for Division 1 of the Fourth was 65.96%.  Sixty percent of Division 5 of the First District’s criminal cases were reversed.

The reversal rate for Division 3 of the Fourth District was 59.26%.  The Fifth and Third Districts were in a photo finish for the period – the Fifth District reversal rate was 47.62% and the Third was 47.37%.  The reversal rate for Division 4 of the First District was one-third.  Finally, Division 1 of the First District had a reversal rate of only 20%.

Join us back here next week as we continue our study of the Court’s reversal rates.

Image courtesy of Pixabay by Goodfreephotos_com (no changes).

 

 

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 behind at 70.45%.  The reversal rate for Division Seven was 62.22%.  Division Five was 61.54%.  The reversal rate for Division Three was 54.29%.  The rate for Division Four was 52.63%.  Two Divisions stayed under fifty percent reversal rate – Division Eight (47.37%) and Division Two (45.45%).

Division Seven was the most active Court on the Supreme Court’s docket, contributing 45 criminal cases.  Division Six was next at 44 cases.  Four courts were in the thirties – Division Five (39 cases), Division Four (38), Division Three (35) and Division One (34).  Division Two contributed 22 criminal cases to the docket.  Division Eight had 19 cases reviewed.

Between 1990 and 1999, the Division which fared worst was the First, with a reversal rate in criminal cases of 80%.  Division Six was at 70%.  Division Three had two-thirds of the criminal cases on the Supreme Court’s docket reversed, and Division Five was right behind at 63.64%.  Division Seven had a reversal rate of 58.33%.  Division Two was at 33.33%.  Division Four had the lowest decade reversal rate – only 16.67%.

Division One once again led between 2000 and 2009, with a reversal rate of 86.67%.  Division Six had a reversal rate of 71.43%.  Division Seven was at 70.37%.  Divisions Five and Eight were tied, with decade reversal rates of two-thirds.  Division Four had 54.17% reversal and Divisions Two and Three were tied, with both at 50%.

Division Four led between 2010 and 2020, with a reversal rate of 75%.  Division Six had a rate of 70%.  Three Divisions were in the fifties: Five (56.25%), Three (53.85%) and Two (50%).  Division One’s reversal rate dropped to 44.44%.  The reversal rate for Division Eight was only 38.46.  Finally, the reversal rate in Division Seven fell to only 33.33%.

Join us back here next time as we review the data for the rest of the state.

Image courtesy of Pixabay by 12019 (no changes).