This time, we’re reviewing the Districts which produced the Supreme Court’s tort caseload, and the Court’s reversal rate, District by District.
The Supreme Court decided 67 tort cases from the First District between 1990 and 1999. The Court decided 26 cases from the Second District, 9 from the Third, 21 from the Fourth District and
For the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a deep dive on the Supreme Court’s tort cases. To begin, we’ll consider whether there is any relationship between the party which won at the Appellate Court and the result at the Supreme Court for the years 1990 through 1999.
The reversal rate for tort cases at
This time, we’re reviewing the Court’s docket data on the criminal (quasi-criminal, juvenile justice and mental health) side of the docket, calculating the percentage of cases year-by-year that arose from final judgments. Although it’s a minimal issue for this period since the death penalty was abolished in Illinois in 2011, we separate out the death
Today, we’re winding up our three-week trip through the data, asking whether the Supreme Court prefers to review final judgments. First up – civil cases for the years 2010 to 2020.
As shown in Table 1789, the share of the Court’s civil docket accounted for by final judgments has dipped between ten and twenty percentage
This time, we’re reviewing the data on final judgments in criminal cases for the years 2000 through 2009. First, we calculate the percentage of non-death criminal cases that arose from final judgments of conviction. Then, we add the share of the overall docket accounted for by death penalty appeals before the state of Illinois finally
Last week, we began our review of a new question: is the conventional wisdom which posits that the Supreme Court only reviews final judgments (making a petition for review under any other circumstances a waste of time and money) really true? This week, we’re reviewing the data for the years 2000 through 2009.
As shown
This time, we’re reviewing the share of appeals accounted for by final judgments in the 1990s. As a reminder, we’re defining “criminal” broadly to include quasi-criminal cases such as habeas corpus, as well as juvenile justice cases. Until 2011 when Illinois abolished the death penalty, we also include direct appeals to the Supreme Court from
We’ve all heard it any number of times: the appellate courts only review final judgments. Even if you can figure out a theory to take a non-final judgment up, the appellate courts won’t decide it on the grounds that it isn’t necessary – let it percolate out, and maybe the case will settle, or the
So we’ve determined that a dissent at the Appellate Court is only a moderate indication that reversal is statistically more likely at the Supreme Court in civil cases. So what about criminal cases?
Between 2010 and 2020, 64% of criminal cases with a dissent below were reversed at the Supreme Court. The reversal rate for
For the past two weeks, we’ve been continuing our review of the data on dissents at the Appellate Court, asking whether a dissent below indicates that a reversal at the Supreme Court is more likely. This time, we’re reviewing the data on civil cases for the years 2010 through 2020.
Across the entire period, once