Last week, we reviewed the basic data on lag times at the Court – how long has it typically taken, year after year, for civil and criminal cases to be argued and decided. This week, we’re looking at a different aspect of lag time – does it help predict the likely result? Is a case
Yesterday, we began our further examination of the Court’s experience with cases with a dissent at the Appellate Court. We asked whether civil cases with a dissent were systematically more or less likely to be reversed than cases which were decided unanimously. Today, we’re asking the same question on the criminal side of the docket.
Last week, we reviewed the data on whether cases which were published below are more frequently reversed. This week, we’re reviewing a related issue: are cases with a dissent below more frequently reversed by the Supreme Court? If so, that might suggest that dissents at the Appellate Court aren’t just helpful in getting the Court’s
Yesterday, we tested whether publication at the Appellate Court has any impact on a civil case’s reversal rate at the Supreme Court. The answer is no – published Appellate Court decisions on the civil side are not consistently reversed at a higher or lower rate than unpublished decisions. Today, we test the same question on
Last week, we looked at the conventional wisdom which holds that the Supreme Court only reviews published decisions from the Appellate Court. We showed that in fact, Rule 23 orders (the Illinois term for unpublished decisions) are not unheard of on the Court’s civil docket – in a typical year, twenty to forty percent of
Yesterday, we looked at the year-by-year data on the civil side of the docket, asking whether a dissent at the Appellate Court tends to indicate that one or more dissenters are likely at the Supreme Court. Today, we’re looking at the same question on the criminal side.
In Table 676, we report the absolute numbers
Last time, we tracked the year-by-year data, testing the proposition that most of the Court’s cases are sufficiently “close calls” to have brought a dissent at the Appellate Court. This week, we’re testing another proposition – does dissent at the Appellate Court suggest that there’s going to be one or more dissenters at the Supreme
For the past two weeks, we’ve been reviewing the government’s winning percentage as the appellant in civil cases at the Illinois Supreme Court. Today, we finish our review with the years 2011 through 2016.
In 2011, the government won its only domestic relations case as an appellant. Governmental entities won two of three cases in
Last week, we began reviewing the government’s winning percentage in civil appeals. We began by reviewing the data for the years 1990-2003. This week, we address the more recent years, beginning with the period 2004-2010.
For the beginning of this period, the government fared somewhat worse in both constitutional law and government and administrative law
Yesterday, we began looking at governmental entities’ won-loss record in civil cases by area of law. Interestingly, governmental entities had significantly more trouble in government and administrative law cases than they did in the previous seven years. In 1997, governmental entities win two thirds of their tort cases and two thirds of their constitutional law