Last week, we completed our comparative look at the sources of appellate jurisdiction in the Illinois Supreme Court’s civil and criminal dockets. We demonstrated that although the Court’s civil docket is heavily inclined towards final judgments, review of interlocutory orders is by no means uncommon. Interlocutory orders are even more numerous on the criminal side of the docket. Today, we begin our review of our next issue – where in the state are the civil and criminal dockets drawn from?
The data for 2000 is reported in Table 158 below. By way of context, for the calendar year 2001, 43.66% of the new civil filings statewide were filed in Cook County. According to the 2000 census, 43.3% of the population of Illinois was living in Cook County. The next largest counties, in descending order, were Du Page, Lake, Will, Kane and Winnebago.
For the year 2000, Cook County originated 51.35% of the Court’s civil docket, significantly above its share of the statewide population. Lake and St. Clair counties contributed 8.11% of the civil docket apiece. Winnebago County contributed an additional 5.41%. Ten different jurisdictions – Kane, Sangamon, McHenry, Du Page, Will, Monroe, Franklin, Adams and Madison counties and the Illinois Pollution Control Board – all originated one apiece of the Court’s civil cases, collectively amounting to 27% of the civil docket.
Cook County’s share of the docket dropped only slightly in 2001 to 50%. Du Page County contributed 10.42%, and Sangamon, Will and McLean counties originated 4.17% of the docket apiece. Once again, a host of jurisdictions contributed one case each – Jefferson, Lake, St. Clair, Kane, Kendall, Madison, Macon, Tazewell, Hardin, Ogle, McDonough and Champaign counties and a certified question from the Seventh Circuit.
The docket remained widely dispersed in 2002. Cases from Cook County fell to 44% of the docket, in line with Cook County’s share of the state population. St. Clair and Du Page counties were next at 8% apiece of the civil docket. Another six percent of the civil docket arose from Champaign County. Another four percent each arose from DeWitt, Williamson and Tazewell counties. Finally, the Court heard one case each from Jackson, Edgar, Peoria, Christian, Kane, McHenry, Will, Madison, McLean and Kankakee counties, and one on certification from the Seventh Circuit – collectively, 22% of the docket.
We report the data for 2003 in Table 161 below. The caseload from Cook County fell further to 36.96% of the civil docket. Another 8.7% of the docket arose from Sangamon County, the home of the state capital. Several of the larger counties in the state – McHenry, Du Page, Will, Madison, Macon and McLean – were responsible for 4.35% of the civil docket each. One case each arose from another thirteen jurisdictions – Jefferson, Knox, Pope, Vermilion, Putnam, Randolph, Rock Island, Coles, Lake, St. Clair, Kane and Adams counties and the Seventh Circuit.
Cook County’s share of the civil docket increase somewhat in 2004 to 43.39%. Du Page County contributed another 9.43% of the docket, followed by Champaign at 7.55%, Lake and St. Clair at 5.66% each, and Peoria County at 3.77% of the docket. Another thirteen jurisdictions – Will, LaSalle, McLean, Wabash, Madison, Winnebago, Kane, Crawford, Union, Sangamon and Rock Island counties, the Illinois Commerce Commission and the Seventh Circuit on certification – contributed one case apiece, or 24.53% of the docket.
Join us back here tomorrow as we compare our results to the sources of the Court’s criminal docket between 2000 and 2004.
Image courtesy of Flickr by Matt Turner (no changes).