Yesterday, we showed that for the most part, the percentage of non-unanimous Appellate Court decisions on the Supreme Court’s docket is about the same on the civil and criminal dockets.  Today, we’re asking the companion question – how important is publication at the Appellate Court?  Last week, we showed that roughly sixty to eighty percent of the Court’s civil cases are published below.  Is publication equally important on the criminal side?

In a word: no.  From 1990 to 1994, the percentage was almost static: 44.93% (1990), 48.28% (1991), 44.57% (1992), 41.86% (1993) and 40% (1994).  In the five years following, the share fell by about a quarter: 29.11% (1995), 24.07% (1996), 34.92% (1997), 22.22% (1998) and 35.85% (1999).

In 2000, 22.09% of the Court’s criminal cases were published below.  In 2001, 32.76% were published.  In 2002, 44.29% were published below and in 2003, it was 35.38%.

But then something curious happened – from 2004 through 2019, publication at the Appellate Court was often more important on the criminal side than on the civil side.  In 2004, 67.74% of the Court’s criminal cases were published below.  In 2005, 64.41% were, and in 2006, 64% of the docket was published below.  In 2007, 53.57% of the criminal docket was published below.  In 2008, it was 54%, and in 2009, it was 55.77%.

In 2010, 60% of the criminal docket was published below.  In 2011, the number fell to 47.92%, but then it went up and stayed up: 57.58% (2012), 60.53% (2013), 67.65% (2014), 57.58% (2015), 62.86% (2016), 64.71% (2017), 69.23% (2018) and 78.57% (2019).

In Table 1368, we report the entire thirty years in a single graph.  What this table shows is that around the time the Court’s membership changed in 2004, the Court’s criminal docket was significantly less populated by unpublished decisions from the Appellate Court.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we turn our attention to a new topic.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Sponki25 (no changes).