The Appellate Court

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7230372364_51f0318280_zYesterday, we reviewed the geographic sources of the Illinois Supreme Court’s civil docket in the first five years of our study period from 2000 to 2004. Today, we compare the originating counties for the criminal docket during the same years. We conclude that in many years early in the twenty-first century, Cook County did not…

4512437526_ef0f8c54f3_zLast 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…

4413403132_725cb1fd39_zToday we conclude our review of the data on the sources of appellate jurisdiction on the civil and criminal dockets of the Illinois Supreme Court between 2000 and 2015. We’ve shown that in a typical year, final judgments comprise between fifty-five and seventy percent of the Court’s civil docket, although that figure has at times…

10177336773_e542612caa_zFor the past two weeks, we’ve been looking at the sources of appellate jurisdiction on the civil and criminal dockets of the Illinois Supreme Court, analyzing how heavily the Court inclines to reviewing final over interlocutory decisions. We’ve shown that throughout its recent history, although appeals from final judgments under Supreme Court Rule 301 form…

497353227_ce4938472d_zLast week, we showed that during the first five years of our study period, review of final decisions was not the dominant feature of the Illinois Supreme Court’s criminal docket (at least to the degree it dominated the civil docket). Yesterday, we discussed the data from the civil docket between 2005 and 2009. Now, we…

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Last week, we began the latest phase of our analysis of the decision making of the Illinois Supreme Court by looking at the question of whether the Court prefers to review final decisions from the trial courts rather than interlocutory orders.  [1] We found that during the years 2000-2004, appeals brought under Supreme Court Rule…

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Yesterday, we announced the expansion of our data library on the work of the Illinois Supreme Court to encompass all of the Court’s decisions since January 1, 2000 – civil, criminal, quasi-criminal and disciplinary.  Today, we begin the next phase of our analysis of the Court’s work.

We begin by revisiting one of the first…

143623934_156d2d5098_zYesterday, we analyzed whether cases involving a dissent at the Appellate Court averaged more questions at the Illinois Supreme Court. The data suggested that appellees tended to get somewhat more questions when the lower court was divided.

Today we turn to a different question: do decisions from certain districts of the Appellate Court tend to…

11442225495_9d9cc1cbc4_zToday we continue our statistical preview of the Illinois Supreme Court’s upcoming September term with State of lllinois v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 31. AFSCME poses a question with potentially significant ramifications across a range of cases: are the State’s contractual promises in contracts with its employee unions conditional on…