As shown in Table 1591, the percentage of the Court’s criminal docket accounted for by final judgments and death penalty appeals remained quite high throughout the years 2010-2020. In 2010, 60.27% of the docket was either from final judgments or death cases. That rose into the seventies from 2011 to 2013 before falling back a
For the past two weeks, we’ve been comparing the data for appeals from final judgments to the Court’s total caseload, addressing the notion that the Court is reluctant to get involved in cases which have not yet reached final judgment. This time, we’re looking at the civil docket for the years 2010 through 2020.
The
Between 2000 and 2009, the share of the Court’s criminal docket accounted for by non-death final judgments edged downwards, from 47.27% in 2000 and 55.17% in 2001 to 34.43% in 2005 and only 26.23% in 2007.
A large part of the reason for that was the increase in death penalty cases. When we add the
During the years 2000 through 2009, the percentage of the Supreme Court’s drifted down slightly. The decade high came in 2000, when 75.51% of the Court’s civil cases were from final judgments. That share fell seventeen points in 2001 before recovering a bit to 64.58% in 2002. In 2004, 60.38% of the civil docket were