This week, we wrap up our analysis of reversal rates by area of law and the party prevailing below with a look at the criminal docket between 2010 and 2015.

In Table 319 below, we report the percentage share of the criminal docket made up by each of the areas of law on which the Court handed down decisions.  Criminal procedure was essentially flat during the past six years: 31.12% of the criminal docket between 2010 and 2016, 30% between 2005 and 2009.  Constitutional law was again the second most common issue on the Court’s docket, accounting for 22.82% of the criminal docket (it was 23.33% for 2005-2009).  Sentencing and habeas corpus cases were up slightly, but were once again the third and fourth most common issues on the Court’s criminal docket.  Sentencing cases were 14.52% of the docket, up from 12.08%, and habeas cases were 10.37%, up from 9.17%.  Sexual crimes and mental health issues were next on the Court’s docket, accounting for 4.56% and 3.73% of the caseload, respectively.  The small number of death penalty appeals the Court heard prior to the abolition of the death penalty accounted for 2.07% of the criminal docket.  Attorney admission and discipline cases were 1.66% of the docket, as were property crimes and juvenile issues.  Obstruction of justice issues and violent crimes accounted for another 1.24%, and the rest of the docket was de minimis at less than 1%.

In Table 320, we report the share of the cases in each area of law where the defendant prevailed below.  We reported earlier that the criminal docket was somewhat more tilted towards reviewing prosecution wins between 2005 and 2009 than it had been earlier.  We see below that that trend has continued over the past six years.  In only six mostly minor areas of the law were defense wins more common.  The Court’s small dockets in property law, vehicle law and official misconduct consisted completely of defense wins below.  Two-thirds of the Court’s mental health cases – another comparatively small area of the docket – were defense wins below as well.  The only substantial parts of the Court’s docket where defense wins were more common were the two biggest areas: criminal procedure, in which 59.46% of the docket involved defense wins, and constitutional law, where 56.37% of the caseload did.

In the remaining significant areas of the criminal docket, prosecution wins from the lower courts predominated.  Only 24% of the habeas corpus cases since 2010 were defense wins below.  Just below half – 48.39% – of the cases involving sentencing law were defense wins below.  Just under half of the juvenile law cases the Court reviewed – 47.06% – were defense wins below.  Only 36.37% of the cases involving assaults and other sexual crimes were defense wins.

Join us back here tomorrow as we turn our attention to the area-by-area reversal rates.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Roger W. (no changes).

For the past few weeks, we’ve been taking a close look at the reversal rates before the Illinois Supreme Court, dividing the data by areas of law and whether the defendant or plaintiff prevailed in the lower court.  Today, we conclude our review of the civil docket by asking how reversal rates have differed, area by area, according to which side won below.

We report the data in Table 318 below.  For the leading area of law – tort – the Court reversed 71.88% of plaintiff wins from the Appellate Court, but only one third of defense wins.  The Court reversed 65% of plaintiff wins in civil procedure cases, but only 46.67% of defense wins.  In government and administrative law cases, the pattern was similar – the Court reversed 61.54% of plaintiff wins from the Appellate Court, but only one in four defense wins.  Domestic relations cases were a bit different, as the Court reversed 54.55% of plaintiff wins, but three-quarters of defendant wins.  The Court’s historically cautious approach to constitutional law claims was reflected in the data as the Court reversed two-thirds of plaintiff wins from below, but only 14.29% of defense wins.  The Court reversed half of plaintiff wins in public employee pension cases, but all of the defense wins.  Tax, one of the few areas of the law where the Court mostly took defense wins from the Appellate Court, followed the same pattern with respect to reversal rates, as none of the plaintiff wins were reversed, but 57.14% of defense wins were.  Election law was similar – half of plaintiff wins were reversed, but 80% of defense wins were. In employment law, the Court reversed all of the plaintiff wins, but two-thirds of the defense wins as well.  Interestingly, the Court reversed only one-third of employee wins in workers’ compensation cases, but all of the employer wins.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we turn to the criminal docket between 2010 and 2015.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Monochrome (no changes).

For the past several weeks, we’ve been taking a close look at reversal rates at the Illinois Supreme Court, analyzing two questions: (1) has the Court reviewed more defendant wins or plaintiff wins from the Appellate Court in each area of law; and (2) do the Court’s reversal rates differ significantly depending on the area of law. Today, we begin the final phase of our analysis, turning to the Court’s caseload from 2010 to 2015.

In Table 316 below, we report the percentage share of the docket accounted for by each area of the law for the civil docket between 2010 and 2015.  Tort was down slightly, but still dominated the civil docket, accounting for 20.37% of the caseload.  Civil procedure was second and up significantly from 2005-2009, rising from 10.41% to 16.2% of the docket.  Government and administrative law, traditionally one of the three top areas in civil law, was up substantially too, going from 6.79% of the docket between 2005 and 2009 to 11.57% for the years 2010-2015.  Domestic relations and constitutional law were next, both at 8.8% of the civil docket; that’s a small increase for domestic relations cases, but a small drop in constitutional law.  Insurance law was down slightly from 8.6% of the docket to 5.09%.  Public employee pension cases were 4.63% of the civil docket, up sharply from the five previous years.  Tax law cases were down slightly at 4.17% of the docket.  Election law was flat at 3.24% of the docket, and employment law was a bit down, also at 3.24%.  Secured transactions were up significantly, accounting for 2.78% of the docket.  The Court also heard five workers’ compensation cases and five cases involving property law.

We report the breakdown between defendant wins and plaintiff wins from the Appellate Court in Table 317 below, divided by area of law.  Between 2005 and 2009, the Court heard more defendant wins than plaintiff wins in a majority of areas of law.  That shifted between 2010 and 2015 – the Court heard more plaintiff wins in 14 of 19 areas of civil law.  In the leading area of law – tort – 72.73% of the Court’s cases were plaintiff wins below.  In civil procedure, 57.14% of the Court’s cases were plaintiff wins below, and in the next most common area, government and administrative law, 52% of the caseload were plaintiff wins.  A majority of domestic relations and constitutional law cases were plaintiff wins at the Appellate Court too – 57.89% of domestic relations cases and 63.15% of government cases.  Insurance was the next most common item on the docket, and 81.82% of the cases were plaintiff wins below.  Three-fifths of all public employee pension cases were plaintiff wins below.   The next two areas of law are the first two where a majority of the caseload has been defendant wins below – only 22.22% of the tax cases were plaintiff wins, and 28.57% of the election law cases were.  Two thirds of the Court’s secured transactions cases were plaintiff wins below, and sixty percent each of the workers’ compensation and property cases were.

Join us back here tomorrow and we’ll turn to an analysis of the area-by-area reversal rates for the civil docket between 2010 and 2015.

Image courtesy of Flickr by David Wilson (no changes).

Yesterday, we took a look at the criminal docket at the Illinois Supreme Court between 2005 and 2009 – specifically, the fraction of the Court’s caseload, one area of the law at a time, which consisted of defendants prevailing below, versus government wins which the Court decided to review.  Today, we address the follow-up question – did the Court tend to reverse defendant or government wins in each area of the law at a higher rate?

We report the reversal rates for each area in Table 315 below.  We see clear evidence of a Court which remained skeptical of constitutional innovation – 60.71% of the caseload in constitutional law was defense wins from the Appellate Court, and the Court reversed 79.41% of defense wins, to only 27.27% of government wins.  In juvenile law, the only other area where more than half the Court’s caseload arose from defense wins below, the Court reversed 81.82% of defense wins from the Appellate Court, but also reversed two-thirds of government wins.

Among the areas of law where most of the caseload involved government wins below, the Court reversed 70% of defense wins in habeas cases, but three-quarters of government wins too.  In cases involving criminal procedure, the Court once again showed a bit of a conservative bent, reversing 69.7% of defense wins, but only 34.21% of government wins.  Sentencing cases were almost evenly distributed – the Court’s caseload was very nearly half defense wins and half government wins, and the Court reversed 53.85% of the defense wins, and 46.67% of the government’s wins.  The Court also reversed 22.22% of the death penalty appeals it decided (just as we did with the 2000-2004 data, we’re defining “reversed” strictly here to include only those cases where the Court reversed the penalty itself, not just a subsidiary aspect of the judgment).  Among the Court’s less important areas, the Court reversed one-third of defense wins in property cases, but all of the government wins.  In cases involving the elements of violent crimes, the Court reversed 33.33% of defense wins and forty percent of government wins.  The Court reversed all of the defense wins involving drug crimes and the pardon power.  The Court reversed all of the defense wins involving vehicle crimes, and half of the government wins.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we begin our review of the docket in the years 2010 through 2015.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Teemu008 (no changes).

Last week, we continued our close look at the Illinois Supreme Court’s reversal rates, divided by the area of law and the prevailing party below, with a look at the civil docket between 2005 and 2009.  Today, we continue our analysis of that period with a look at the criminal, quasi-criminal, juvenile and disciplinary docket.

In Table 313 below, we report the percentage share of the docket accounted for by each area of law.  Criminal procedure cases shot to the top of the docket, amounting to just short of one-third of the caseload at 30% – more than double its share in the previous five years.  Constitutional law was once again the leading subject on the docket, accounting for 23.33% of the caseload, but that was down slightly from the previous five years.  Cases involving sentencing law were up significantly – 12.08% of the docket between 2005 and 2009, compared to only 7.44% between 2000 and 2004.  Habeas corpus cases, the second most common area of the docket in the previous five years (at 21.73%), were down sharply, accounting for only 9.17% of the docket between 2005 and 2009.  Juvenile offenses were down slightly at 7.5% of the docket.  Death penalty appeals, which had accounted for 10.12% of the criminal docket between 2000 and 2004, fell to only 3.75% of the Court’s criminal caseload during this period.  Violent crimes were flat at 2.92% of the docket, and sex crimes were down slightly, also at 2.92%.  Drug crimes were up, rising from 0.89% of the docket between 2000 and 2004 to 2.08% of the caseload during these years.  Property and vehicle crimes were up a bit, both accounting for 1.67% of the caseload.  Attorney disciplinary cases were down somewhat, with published opinions in argued cases accounting for only 1.25% of the caseload.  The Court heard two cases involving the pardon power, and one each involving mental health and alcohol crimes.

In Table 314 below, we report the percentage of the total caseload in each area of the law in which the criminal defendant prevailed below.  We see here that the Court drew its criminal caseload somewhat more evenly from decisions favoring the prosecution below than it had in the previous five years.  Once again, death penalty appeals, which were automatically taken straight from the Circuit Court to the Supreme Court, show zero pro-defendant decisions below, but disregarding that area, in eight of thirteen areas of the law, pro-prosecution decisions at the Appellate Court were more common on the Court’s docket than pro-defendant ones.  The Court’s small caseload in vehicle crimes and the pardon power was evenly divided.  In criminal procedure, 46.48% of the caseload involved defense wins below. In the sentencing cases, 46.43% were defense wins.  In habeas corpus, 45.45% of the caseload involved defense wins.  Four-tenths of the drug law cases came from defense wins below, and 37.5% of the cases involving violent crimes.  Only 28.57% of the cases involving sexual offenses were defense wins below.

Only three areas of the law were predominantly made up of defense-side wins from the Appellate Court: property law crimes (75%); juvenile offenses (64.71%) and constitutional law (60.71%).

Join us back here tomorrow as we turn to analyzing the comparative reversal rates of pro-defendant and pro-government decisions below at the Illinois Supreme Court.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Adam Moss (no changes).

Yesterday, we began our analysis of the Illinois Supreme Court’s civil docket during the second five years of our period of study, 2005-2009.  Today, we continue that study by addressing whether the Court tended to reverse either pro-defendant or pro-plaintiff decisions at a higher rate in any particular area of the law during those years.

Overall, the Court tended to reverse pro-plaintiff decisions at a somewhat higher rate, with the reversal rate of liberal Appellate Court decisions exceeding the conservative rate for eleven of nineteen areas of law.  In tort law, the Court’s most common area, the Court reversed 69.23% of pro-plaintiff decisions, but only half of pro-defendant ones.  The Court reversed slightly more conservative civil procedure decisions than liberal ones – 70% to 61.54%.  The reversal rate on decisions in government and administrative law was quite low – one-third of liberal decisions, no conservative ones.  In the area of domestic relations, the Court reversed 60% of pro-plaintiff decisions, but all of the pro-defendant ones.  On the other hand, the Court reversed every one of its pro-plaintiff employment law decisions, but only two-thirds of the pro-defendant ones.  The Court reversed no decisions which favored the employee in workers’ compensation matters, but reversed 57.14% of the time in decisions favoring the employer. The Court also inclined in a conservative direction in insurance law cases, reversing 77.78% of decisions in which the plaintiff had prevailed below, but only 30% of decisions where the defendant had prevailed.

Not surprisingly, given the Court’s conservative bent in matters of constitutional law, the Court reversed half of all pro-defendant cases in that area, but 72.73% of all decisions favoring plaintiffs below.  Similarly, the Court reversed every one of the cases it heard in consumer law where the plaintiff had won at the Appellate Court, but only 40% of decisions favoring the defendant.

Join us back here next week, as we turn to a close analysis of the Court’s criminal docket between 2005 and 2009.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Travis Wise (no changes).

Over the past two weeks, we’ve been taking a close look at reversal rates on the Illinois Supreme Court’s civil and criminal dockets, divided by area of the law.  Today, we begin looking at the years 2005-2009.

Tort was slightly down during these years, comprising 22.62% of the civil docket.  Civil procedure was still in double figures, accounting for 10.41% of the docket, but government and administrative law, which was second between 2000 and 2004, fell by more than half, accounting for only 6.79% of the docket during these years.  Domestic relations was slightly down, also amounting to 6.79% of the civil docket.  Workers compensation and employment law accounted for 4.98% of the docket each.  Tax law accounted for 4.52% of the docket, and consumer law just slightly less at 4.07%.  Property law was relatively flat at 3.17%, but election law was substantially up, also accounting for 3.17% of the Court’s civil docket.  Public employee pensions and contract law were 2.71% of the Court’s civil docket apiece.  Wills and estates accounted for 1.36%, and the remaining subjects – environmental law, secured transactions, arbitration and trusts law – were all below one percent of the civil docket.

Where the Court tended to review somewhat more pro-plaintiff decisions from the Appellate Court between 2000 and 2004, the opposite was true in the majority of areas of the law between 2005 and 2009.  The Court averaged more pro-plaintiff than pro-defendant decisions in only eight of the nineteen areas of the civil law it decided. Tort, civil procedure and government and administrative law, the three most common subjects on the civil docket, each inclined only slightly towards pro-plaintiff decisions – 52% of tort decisions were liberal, 56.52% of civil procedure decisions and 60% of government and administrative law decisions.  Two thirds of domestic relations decisions were pro-plaintiff, but only 36.36% of workers’ compensation decisions reviewed by the Court involved the employees prevailing below.  Nearly all of the employment law cases the Court heard involved the employers prevailing below – only 18.18% of the employment docket involved liberal decisions below.  In consumer law, 44.44% of the cases reviewed involved plaintiffs prevailing below.  Property law was even lower – only 14.29% of the property law docket involved plaintiffs prevailing at the Appellate Court.  Most of the Court’s contract law cases involved plaintiffs prevailing below – 83.33% – but the cases involving public employee pensions were evenly split, with exactly half involving employees prevailing below.

Join us back here tomorrow as we address reversal rates among the Court’s pro-plaintiff and pro-defendant cases, divided by area of law, for these years.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Kevin (no changes).

Last week, we showed that between 2000 and 2004, in a variety of areas of civil law, the Court tended to review more liberal decisions from the Appellate Court than conservative ones. Yesterday, we showed that things were at least somewhat more balanced during those years on the criminal side.  The Court reviewed more liberal decisions in only seven of thirteen areas of the criminal law in which it decided cases.  Today, we turn to our second question, contrasting reversal rates for liberal and conservative decisions in each area of the criminal law.

In Table 309, we report the reversal rates for liberal decisions – nearly always, favoring criminal defendants – and conservative ones favoring the state.  Of course, since the death penalty docket was an automatic appeal, by definition all the cases were conservative decisions below.  Even limiting our definition of “reversal” to cases where the death penalty itself was overturned, the Court reversed 42.42% of all death cases.  In habeas corpus cases, the Court reversed 31.25% of conservative decisions favoring the State, and 55.56% of pro-defendant decisions.  The Court reversed in 60% of pro-government sentencing cases, but 78.57% of the time in pro-defendant cases.  In criminal procedure cases, the Court reversed half of pro-government decisions, but 60.71% of all decisions favoring the defendant below.  Interestingly, reversal rates in constitutional law cases were quite low during these years.  The Court reversed 36.67% of pro-government decisions from the Appellate Court, and one third of pro-defendant decisions.  Reversal was also comparatively uncommon in the Court’s juvenile cases – the Court reversed only 30.77% of decisions favoring the government, but only 26.67% of decisions favoring the defendant.

Join us back here next Tuesday as we turn to an area-by-area analysis of reversal rates in the civil docket between 2005 and 2009.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Bradhoc (no changes).