Last time, we showed that between 1990 and 1999, as majority opinions in civil cases got substantially shorter, unanimity became significantly more common. What about the criminal docket?
The effect on the criminal side of the docket was even more noticeable.
In 1990, the average majority opinion in a criminal case was 25.97 pages. By
At the outset of this series of posts, we noted that analytic research has shown a connection between the length of majority opinions and the unanimity rate. So my next step, now that we’ve reviewed the caseload data from the Appellate Court, will be to compare the unanimity rate to the average length of majority
Today, we’re looking at the data for the criminal docket at the Supreme Court during the 1990s – specifically (1) the total caseload; (2) the total number of pages of majority opinions written and (3) the average length of the Court’s majority opinions in criminal cases.
For the entire decade, the Court decided 611 cases.
We’re reviewing the data on declining dockets at the Appellate Court for the years 2011 through 2021 – today, the criminal docket.
Once again – just as with the civil docket – the First District saw the biggest drop from 2011 to 2021, with new criminal filings down 57.8%. The Second District was next, dropping
This week, we complete our review of the docket data from the Appellate Court, covering the years 2011 through 2021.
Below is the data for new civil filings at the Appellate Court. Filings in the First District were comparatively stable from 2011 through 2015, declining by only 25 new filings overall (from 2134 to 2109).
This time, we’re reviewing the decline in Appellate Court criminal dockets between 2001 and 2010.
The sharpest decline was in the First District. There were 2,176 new criminal notices of appeal filed in 2000. Although that number rose to 2,334 in 2001, it nosedived to 1,772 in 2002 and stayed around that level for the
Last time we reviewed the data for civil dockets in the Districts of the Appellate Court for the years 1997 through 2000. Today, we’re looking at the data for the years 2001 through 2010.
In 2000, the First District saw 2,109 new proceedings. That number dipped towards the middle of the decade, bottoming out at
Last time, we showed that although civil dockets were down a bit between 1997 and 2000 in the First and Fifth Districts, declines elsewhere in the state were negligible. This time, we look at the criminal dockets for the same period.
The pattern was relatively similar on the criminal docket. Across the four years, new
Today we’re beginning a series of posts examining the declining dockets at the Appellate Court and assessing the impact on the Supreme Court’s work.
Below, we report the District-by-District new filings numbers for civil cases, 1997-2000 (all data comes from the Illinois Courts Annual Report Statistical Summaries – we begin with 1997 because that’s as
