Yesterday, we began our review of the year-to-year average length of the Court’s opinions in criminal cases – majority opinions, concurrences and dissents, beginning with the years 1990 to 2003. Today, we’re looking at the years 2004 through 2017.
Across the entire fourteen-year period, there is some evidence that majority opinions have edged a bit
Last week, we reviewed the year-by-year data on the length of the Court’s opinions in civil cases – majorities, concurrences and dissents. We were looking at two questions: first, are opinions getting longer (or shorter) over time, and second, is there a relationship between longer dissents and longer majorities? This week, we’re looking at the
Yesterday, we reviewed the average length of the Court’s opinions – majorities, concurrences and dissents – for the years 1990 through 2003. Today, we’re bringing the numbers up to the present day.
We noted yesterday that majority opinions seemed to have gotten slightly longer on average for the years 1990 through 2003. For the years
This week, we’re turning our attention to a new subject – how has the average length of the Court’s majority, concurring and dissenting opinions in civil cases changed between 1990 and 2017? In studying the numbers, we’re looking for evidence on two points: are opinions getting consistently longer or shorter, whether because of the evolution
This week, we’re following up last week’s posts by taking a closer look at how dissent was distributed at the Court between one, two and three dissenter cases. Today, we’re looking at the criminal docket. For the years 1990 to 2017, 11.32% of the Court’s 1,590 criminal cases had one dissenter, 11.89% had two and
Last week, we reviewed the year by year data, tracing the changes in the Court’s unanimity rate between 1990 and 2017. But of course, that leaves out an important variable – a 6-1 decision tells us something very different from a 4-3 decision. So how was the Court’s dissent distributed across one, two and three
Yesterday, we reviewed the California Supreme Court’s dissents in civil cases between 2008 and 2015. Today, we turn to the Justices’ dissents in criminal cases for the same years.
Justice Kennard led the Court in 2008 and 2009, writing 6 dissents in criminal cases each year. In 2008, Justice Chin wrote two dissents and Justice
Last week, we began our analysis of the Justices’ dissents in civil and criminal cases, looking at the years 2000 through 2007. Today, we turn to the dissents in civil cases between 2008 and 2015.
We begin in Table 130 below with the number of dissents written each year by each Justice. In 2008, Justices
This week, we’re turning our attention to a new subject, tracking which Justices most often dissented, year by year, and which Justices tended to write the longest and shortest dissents. Yesterday, we reviewed the Justices’ dissents in civil cases between 2000 and 2007. Today, we review the Justices’ criminal dissents for the same years.
In
Last week, we wrapped up our analysis of the California Supreme Court’s history with amicus briefs. Today, we begin a new topic, tracking which Justices have most frequently dissented, and which Justices tend to write, year by year, the longest and shortest dissents.
In Table 126 below, we report the yearly distribution of dissents in