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
Once again, a dissent at the Appellate Court was a strong indicator that the Supreme Court was more likely to reverse in criminal cases between 2000 and 2009. For the ten year period, 68.69% of cases with a dissenter below were reversed by the Supreme Court, while only 46.36% of cases decided unanimously at the
Just as was true in the 1990s, the presence of a dissenter at the Appellate Court was a mild-to-moderate indicator between 2000 and 2009 that a reversal was more likely in a civil case. Across the ten years, 61.4% of cases with a dissenter at the Appellate Court were reversed by the Supreme Court, while
A dissent below was a far stronger indicator of the likelihood of reversal at the Supreme Court in criminal cases between 1990 and 1999 than it was on the civil side. For the entire period, 63.51% of cases with a dissent below ended in reversal at the Supreme Court. Only 44.77% of cases decided unanimously
For the next three weeks, we’ll be reviewing data closely related to our just-concluded look at dissents below and at the Supreme Court. This time, we’re asking a related question – is the Supreme Court more likely to reverse when there’s a dissent below? Or to put it another way – is there reason to
In criminal cases between 2005 and 2020, dissents at the Appellate Court were more common than divided decisions in criminal cases in seven of sixteen years: 2005, 2008, 2010-2011, 2014-2015, 2018. In 2007, 2016 and 2020, the percentages were identical. In 2006, 28% of criminal cases had a dissent at the Supreme Court to 22%
Last week, we reviewed the year-by-year data comparing the dissent rate at the Appellate Court to the percentage of divided civil decisions at the Supreme Court, investigating whether dissent below signals a higher likelihood of a divided decision. This week, we’re looking at the data for the years 2005 through 2020, civil first.
In eight
We determined last time that there was relatively little connection between the rate of dissent at the Appellate Court and the likelihood of division at the Supreme Court in civil cases. This time, we’re looking at criminal cases for the same years: 1990 through 2004.
The connection between dissent at the Appellate Court and Supreme
Today and next week, we turn our attention to a new issue – does dissent at the Appellate Court signal likely dissent at the Supreme Court? We begin with the Court’s civil decisions between 1990 and 2004.
For the most part, the answer is no. The dissent rate at the Appellate Court in the civil