Today, we’re concluding our trip through the death penalty lag time data with a look at the final step in capital litigation: the average wait from oral argument to decision.

In 1990, the average wait was 186.42 days (the result of an outlier case). In 1991, the average was 60.16 days. The average was then

Last week, we reviewed the data for the average wait between the end of briefing in death penalty cases and the oral argument. Today, we’re looking at a related question – does the lag time between briefing and oral argument suggest anything about the ultimate result in the case?

We divide the data into four

Today, we’re continuing our review of the death penalty lag time data, looking at the average wait from the filing of the final brief – whether that’s the party reply brief or an amicus or supplemental brief – to the oral argument.

In 1990, the average was 225.23 days. It was 265.92 in 1991, 217.3

Our next milestone in reviewing the lag time data for death penalty cases is the period from the end of party briefing – the filing of the reply brief – to the filing of the last supplemental or amicus brief (including replies to one or the other). Amicus briefs have been very rare in death

This week, we’re continuing our review of the detailed lag time data for the Court’s death penalty cases. First up: the average wait from the order appointing death penalty counsel to filing of the opening brief.

During the 1990s, the average wait from appointment of counsel to the filing of the opening brief increased significantly.

Today, we’re tracking the average lag time from filing of the certified record on appeal to the order appointing direct appeal death penalty counsel. The average wait was 416.35 days in 1990, 735.24 in 1991, 620.48 days in 1992, 743.65 days in 1993, 673.29 days in 1994, 921.31 days in 1995, 542.63 days in 1996,

For the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing the Court’s lag time data from one case benchmark to the next for both civil and criminal cases. In our next several posts, we’ll be looking at the Court’s recent history with death penalty cases. Today, we’re tracking the lag time between the first two steps in

[The posts for yesterday and today are cross-posted, in slightly revised form, from the Illinois Supreme Court Review.]

Yesterday, we compared the California and Illinois Supreme Court’s death penalty case loads between 1992, the beginning of our California data, through 2010, when Illinois abolished the death penalty.  We found that in the years

[The posts for today and tomorrow are cross-posted, in slightly revised form, from the Illinois Supreme Court Review.]

For the past two weeks, we’ve been taking a detailed look at the death penalty jurisprudence of the California Supreme Court and, at our sister blog the Illinois Supreme Court Review, the Illinois Supreme Court.