4515769681_a7461030aa_z

Last week, we addressed the reversal rates for civil and criminal cases at the Illinois Supreme Court between 2006 and 2010.  Today, we turn to the final five years of our study period, 2011-2015.

Statewide reversal rates in civil cases were in the same range between 2011 and 2015 that they were during the previous five years.  In 2011, the statewide reversal rate was 51.35%.  The reversal rate jumped to 76.92% the following year before declining to 55.88% in 2013.  In 2014, 70.37% of all civil cases were reversed, but the following year, the reversal rate fell to 54.54%.

Table 274

We turn next to the three-year floating reversal rates for the Divisions of Chicago’s First District.  As shown in Table 275 below, reversal rates in Divisions 1, 2, 3 and 6 remained comparatively high throughout the relevant period.  The three-year floating reversal rate was over 90% for Division 1 in 2013 and 2014 and for Division 2 in 2012.  Three-year floating reversal rates were over 75% in Division 2 for 2011, 2012 and 2014; for Division 3 in 2014, for Division 5 in 2011 and for Division 6 in 2012 and 2015.  On the other hand, reversal rates in Division 4 were well below state averages at the outset of the period (37.5% in 2011, 30% in 2012), and reversal rates in Division 5 were well below average at the end (40% in 2013, 16.67% in 2014, 28.57% in 2015).

Table 275

We report the reversal rate data for the remaining districts of the Appellate Court in Table 276 below.  As we’ve reported for previous periods, the Fourth District was somewhat below the statewide average throughout these five years – 45.45% in 2011; 30% in 2012; 47.06% in 2013; 50% in 2014; 47.37% in 2015.  The Second District, which had a somewhat high reversal rate in earlier periods, was right around the statewide average for the most part during these most recent five years – 50% in 2011; 57.89% in 2012; 59.09% in 2013; 81.25% in 2014; 58.82% in 2015.

The reversal rate at the Third District has been somewhat above the statewide average in recent years.  In 2011, the three-year floating rate for the Third District was 63.64%.  The following year, the rate was 75%.  The reversal rate dropped the following two years – 60% in 2013 and 57.14% the following year – before jumping to 83.33% in 2015.  The Fifth District’s reversal rate was the highest in the State throughout this five-year period – 85.71% in 2011, 78.57% in 2012, 81.82% in 2013 and 2014, and 80% in 2015.

The Court continued to take a skeptical view of direct appeals – for the most part, cases in which the Circuit Court had struck down a state statute.  In 2011, 2014 and 2015, the three-year floating reversal rate was 66.67%.  In 2012, it was 100%.

Table 276

Join us back here tomorrow as we address the reversal rate in criminal cases between 2011 and 2015.  After that, we’ll turn to the Court’s handling of PLA’s from the Districts, and begin to derive a “true” reversal rate for each District.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Matt Turner (no changes).