Today we’re continuing our two-part analysis of each District of the Appellate Court’s performance at the Supreme Court since 1990. Question 1, which we address below, is how likely is a civil decision from each part of the Appellate Court to be affirmed unanimously? Question 2, which we’ll look at for the next post, is among the rest of the civil cases – all cases not affirmed unanimously – what’s the average votes to affirm the Appellate Court? This week we’re looking at the years 2000 through 2009.
In 2000, all the civil cases decided by the Court from the Third District were unanimously affirmed. Two-thirds of the decisions from the Fourth District and from Division Four of the First District were unanimously affirmed as well. Meanwhile, none of the decisions from Division One, Three or Six of the First or the Second District were affirmed unanimously. In 2001, all decisions from Division Six of the First District were affirmed unanimously. Three-quarters of the decisions from the Third District were. None of the decisions from Division Two of the First District were. In 2002, the best performer was Division Three of the First, with two-thirds unanimous affirmances. Divisions Two, Four and Five of the First had zero unanimous affirmances. In 2003, the best performers were Divisions Two and Five of the First District and the Second District, each of which had half their decisions unanimously affirmed. In 2004, all the decisions from Division Two of the First were unanimously affirmed – none of the decisions from Division One of the First were.
In 2005, three-quarters of civil decisions from Division One of the First District were unanimously affirmed. Two-thirds of the decisions from the Fourth District were too, but only 12.5% of the decisions from the Fifth District were unanimously affirmed. In 2006, half the decisions from Divisions Three and Six of the First District and the Third District were unanimously affirmed. In 2007, all the decisions from Division One of the First District were unanimously affirmed, but none of the decisions from Division Five of the Fourth District were. In 2008, three quarters of the decisions from Division One of the First District were affirmed unanimously, but none of the decisions from Divisions Two and Three were. In 2009, half the decisions from Division Six of the First District were affirmed unanimously, but none of the decisions from Divisions Two, Three, Four or Five were.
In the next post, we’ll address the data for the same years on average votes to affirm.
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