For the past several weeks, we’ve been refining the most frequently seen measure of how an intermediate appellate court has fared before the Supreme Court – the simple reversal rate – by tracking the average votes to affirm, District by District, divided by non-unanimous and unanimous decisions of the Supreme Court.  Today, we turn to the Illinois Supreme Court’s civil docket between 2010 and 2015.

Division Five of the First District has led in the past six years among non-unanimous decisions, averaging 4.25 votes to affirm.  Division Three was next at 3.8 votes, followed by the Fourth District at 3.64 votes.  The Second District has averaged 3.33 votes to affirm.  Division Four of the First District has averaged 2.86 votes to affirm in civil cases, followed by Division Six at 2.6.  Three courts – Division One of the First District, the Fourth District, and direct appeals from the Circuit Court (typically constitutional law cases) all averaged 2.5 votes to affirm in non-unanimous cases.  Division Two of the First District has averaged only 2.2 votes to affirm.  The Third District averaged 1.5 votes to affirm in non-unanimous cases.

The Fourth District performed well in cases decided unanimously by the Supreme Court, averaging 4.22 votes to affirm.  Division Four was right behind at 4.18 votes.  Direct appeals averaged 3.5 votes to affirm in unanimous cases, and Division One of the First District averaged 3.  The Third District averaged 2.83 votes to affirm, and the Second District averaged 2.81.  Two Divisions of the First District were next – the Fifth averaged 2.63 votes, and the Division Three averaged 2.5.  Division Two of the First District averaged 1.82 votes to affirm, followed by Division Six at 1.75.  The Fifth District ranked last, averaging 0.78 votes to affirm.  The only case heard by the Court from the Workers Compensation Commission Division of the First District was unanimously affirmed, and the 2010 case from the WCC Division of the Third District was unanimously reversed.

Join us back here tomorrow as we determine which Districts and Divisions have had the largest portion of their civil cases unanimously reversed during the past six years.

Image courtesy of Flickr by LooneyTuneTed (no changes).

Yesterday, we began our look at the Illinois Supreme Court’s criminal docket for the years 2005 to 2009 by calculating average votes to affirm, District by District of the Appellate Court.  Today, we ask a related question: what fraction of each District and Division’s criminal decisions were reversed unanimously by the Supreme Court – a votes to affirm of zero?

We noted yesterday that a number of Districts and Divisions had quite low votes to affirm averages for unanimous decisions.  In Table 329 below, we see part of the explanation for that result – a significant fraction of Appellate Court decisions was reversed unanimously.

Two thirds of the criminal decisions from Division Three of the First District and the Fifth District were reversed unanimously.  Division Four of the First District, which was third from the bottom in average votes to affirm for unanimous cases, had 61.54% of its criminal cases reversed unanimously.  Among unattributed decisions of the First District, 51.52% were reversed unanimously.  Among direct appeals from the Circuit Court, 44.44% were unanimously reversed.  The Third District and Division Five of the First District were right behind, with 43.24% and 42.86% unanimous reversals, respectively.  For Division One of the First District, 37.5% of criminal cases were unanimously reversed.  One third of criminal decisions from Division Two were unanimously reversed.  The Second and Fourth Districts fared reasonably well, with only 31.58% and 30.56%, respectively, of their criminal decisions unanimously reversed.  Finally, only one quarter of criminal decisions from Division Six of the First District had a votes to affirm of zero.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we begin our look at average votes to affirm for civil cases between 2010 and 2015.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Ron Frazier (no changes).

For the past few weeks, we’ve been refining simple reversal rates – the most often-used measure of how an intermediate appellate court has fared before the Supreme Court – by tracking the average votes to affirm each District and Division of the Appellate Court.  This week, we’re looking at the criminal docket between 2005 and 2009.

Direct appeals from the Circuit Court led among non-unanimous decisions for these years, averaging 4.86 votes to affirm.  Divisions One and Four of the First District and the Fourth and Fifth District were next, each averaging four votes in cases which divided the Supreme Court.  Cases from the First District which we were unable to attribute to a particular Division averaged 3.83 votes to affirm in non-unanimous cases.  Divisions Three and Six of the First District averaged 3.33 votes.  The Third District was next, averaging 3.13 votes to affirm.  Division Two of the First District averaged only three votes to affirm.  The Second District was second from last among the Districts and Divisions of the Appellate Court, averaging 2.11 votes to affirm in non-unanimous.  Finally, Division Five of the First District averaged two votes.

On the other hand, Division Six of the First District led among cases decided unanimously by the Supreme Court, averaging 4.2 votes to affirm.  The Second and Fourth Districts were right behind at 4.11 and 4.1 votes, respectively.  Division One of the First District averaged 3.86 votes, followed by Divisions Two and Five of the First District at 3.5 each.  The Third District and unattributed cases from the First District were next, averaging 2.9 and 2.85 votes to affirm.  Direct appeals from the Circuit Court, which had the highest average votes to affirm among non-unanimous decisions, were next, averaging 2.7 votes to affirm.  The remaining Districts and Divisions all had lower votes to affirm for unanimous decisions than any District had among non-unanimous decisions – we’ll see tomorrow whether this suggests a high number of unanimous reversals.  Divisions Four and Three of the First District averaged 1.3 and 1.17 votes to affirm, respectively.  Finally, the Fifth District had an average of zero votes to affirm among unanimous decisions.

Join us back here tomorrow as we address the share of each District and Division’s criminal cases which resulted in unanimous reversals for these five years.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Kai Schreiber (no changes).

Yesterday, we continued our analysis, refining simple reversal rates as a measure of how the Districts and Divisions of the Appellate Court fared before the Supreme Court by calculating each court’s average votes to affirm in civil cases between 2005 and 2009.  Today, we ask which Districts had the highest and lowest percentage of their civil decisions reversed unanimously during these years – a votes to affirm score of zero.

Not surprisingly, given the data on average votes to affirm, 62.96% of the civil cases reviewed by the Court from the Fifth District were unanimously reversed.  Division Five of the First District was right behind: 62.5% of its civil cases had a votes to affirm of zero.  Direct appeals, which had comparatively low average votes to affirm, ended in unanimous reversals 56.25% of the time.  Half of the civil cases from Divisions Three and Four of the First District were unanimously reversed as well.  For Division Two of the First District, the unanimous reversal rate was 41.18%, and forty percent of the Second District’s cases were too.  The Third District fared relatively well, with only 36.36% of its cases unanimously reversed, and Division Six of the First District was not far behind at 31.25%.  The three Appellate Courts which fared the best by this measure were the Fourth District (25.93%), the Industrial Commission panel of the First District (25%), and Division One of the First District (21.43%).

Join us back here next Tuesday, when we’ll turn our attention to the Court’s criminal cases between 2005 and 2009.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Dan (no changes).

Last week, we further refined our measure of how the decisions of the various Districts and Divisions of the Appellate Court have fared before the Supreme Court by calculating the average votes to affirm in civil cases between 2000 and 2004.  Today, we begin our look at the second five years of our study period – 2005 to 2009.

Between 2005 and 2009, we saw that average votes to affirm were highest in non-unanimous decisions among direct appeals from the Circuit Court.  For our second five years, that’s not the case at all.  Districts Four and Five of Division One led with an average of five votes to affirm. Division One of the First District was next among non-unanimous decisions with 4.83 votes to affirm.  The Third District is next, averaging 3.75 votes to affirm in non-unanimous decisions.  Division Six of the First District averaged 3.67 votes to affirm in non-unanimous cases, while the Second District averaged 3.5.  The Fourth District came in at 3.38 votes to affirm.  Division Two of the First District averaged 2.67 votes to affirm in non-unanimous civil decisions.  Direct appeals were near the bottom, averaging only 2.5 votes to affirm.  The Fifth District averaged 1.86 votes to affirm, and Division Three of the First District was dead last, with an average of 1.5 votes to affirm.

Decisions from the Industrial Commission panel of the First District led among unanimous decisions from the Supreme Court, averaging five votes to affirm.  Division One of the First District was next, averaging 3.88 votes to affirm.  The Third District averaged 3.72 votes to affirm, and Division Six of the First District was just slightly behind at 3.69 votes to affirm.  The Fourth District averaged 3.43 votes to affirm, and the Second District was only slightly behind at an average of 3.41 votes.  Divisions Three, Four and Two of the First District were next, averaging 2.79, 2.5 and 2.36 votes to affirm, respectively.  Direct appeals were third from the bottom, averaging 1.67 votes to affirm, and Division Five of the First District averaged only one vote to affirm.  The Fifth District had a rough time between 2005 and 2009 in civil cases, averaging only 0.95 votes to affirm in cases decided unanimously.

Join us back here tomorrow as we determine which Districts had the highest fraction of their civil decisions reversed unanimously during this second five years.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Andrew E. Larsen (no changes).

Yesterday, we began addressing the average votes to affirm, District by District and Division by Division, of the Appellate Court in criminal cases before the Illinois Supreme Court between 2000 and 2004.  Today, we turn to a related question: which Districts of the Appellate Court had the highest percentage of their criminal cases result in unanimous reversals – votes to affirm of zero?

The data is reported in Table 325 below.  All three of the criminal cases which arose from Division Two of the First District were unanimously reversed.  Half of the cases from Divisions Three and Four of the First District were unanimously reversed as well.  Districts Three and Four were right behind, with 47.22% and 45%, respectively, of those courts’ criminal cases being unanimously reversed.  District Five had 35.29% of its criminal decisions end in unanimous reversals during these five years.  Divisions Five and Six of the First District and the Second District were right behind District Five, with one third of their decisions ending in unanimous reversals.  Division One of the First District was next, with only 28.57% of its criminal decisions ending in unanimous reversals between 2000 and 2004.  Direct appeals performed best – not surprisingly, given that direct appeals were the highest average votes to affirm in non-unanimous cases.  Only 17.7% of direct appeals in criminal cases ended in unanimous reversals.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we address average votes to affirm in the civil docket between 2005 and 2009.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Teemu008 (no changes).

Last week, we began further refining reversal rates as a measure of how the Districts and Divisions of the Appellate Court have fared before the Illinois Supreme Court by considering the average votes to affirm the Appellate Court’s decisions in the civil and criminal dockets.  Today, we turn to the Supreme Court’s criminal docket between 2000 and 2004.

We report the data below in Table 324, once again dividing the cases between non-unanimous and unanimous decisions.  Among the Supreme Court’s non-unanimous decisions, average votes to affirm were highest among direct appeals from the Circuit Courts.  But in unanimously decided cases, Division Six of the First District led at 4.2 votes to affirm. Division Three of the First District was the second highest among non-unanimous decisions, averaging four votes per case to affirm, followed by Division One (3.6 votes to affirm), First District cases not attributed to any Division (3.33) and Second District cases (3.33).  Fifth District cases were next among non-unanimous decisions, averaging 3.2 votes per case, followed by Division Six of the First District (3 votes to affirm) and the Fourth District (3 votes).  The Third District averaged only 2.56 votes to affirm in split decisions, followed by Division Five of the First District (2 votes) and Division Four (1 votes to affirm).

The second highest average votes to affirm among unanimous decisions, behind Division Six of the First District, was the Second District at 3.81.  Divisions Three, Four and Five of the First District averaged 3.5 votes to affirm, as did the unattributed cases from the First District.  The Fifth District averaged 3.42 votes to affirm, followed by direct appeals at 3.33 votes to affirm per case.  The Third and Fourth Districts averaged only 2.56 and 2.43 votes to affirm, respectively.  Divisions One and Two of the First District had the hardest time in unanimous decisions before the Court during these years – all of their cases which were unanimously decided ended in reversals.

Join us back here tomorrow as we turn to a related question – which Districts of the Appellate Court had the highest rate of unanimous reversals in the criminal docket between 2000 and 2004?

Image courtesy of Flickr by Nicholas Cardot (no changes).

Yesterday, we began refining our analysis of the how each District of the Appellate Court has fared before the Supreme Court by calculating average votes to affirm the Appellate Court’s decision, divided by non-unanimous and unanimous decisions at the Supreme Court.  Today, we add another wrinkle: what fraction of each District’s civil decisions had votes to affirm of zero – in other words, were unanimously reversed?

We report the data in Table 323 below.  In all, four courts had more than ten unanimous reversals: the Second District (17); the Fifth (13); direct appeals (13) and the Fourth District (11).  For Division Six of the First District, 62.5% of the civil cases ended in unanimous reversals.  59.09% of the Court’s civil cases which arrived as direct appeals (bypassing the Appellate Court) ended in unanimous reversals.  For the Second District, 47.22% of the civil cases ended in unanimous reversal, and 47.06% did for Division One of the First District.  For the Fifth District, 43.33% of civil cases resulted in unanimous reversals.  Division Four of the First District had a 38.46% rate of zero votes to affirm in civil cases between 2000 and 2004.  The Fourth District had a 36.67% rate of unanimous reversals. Division Three of the First District saw 35.29% unanimous reversals in civil cases, and one third of the civil cases from Division Two ended that way.  Division Five of the First District and First District cases for which we couldn’t determine a Division both fared well by this measure – 16.67% for Division Five, 18.18% for unattributed cases.  But the best outcome in the state was for the Third District’s eighteen cases.  Only two of those cases – 11.11% – ended in unanimous reversals.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we turn our attention to the criminal docket for the same years, 2000-2004.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Mark and Allegra Jaroski-Biava (no changes).