This time, we’re reviewing the share of appeals accounted for by final judgments in the 1990s. As a reminder, we’re defining “criminal” broadly to include quasi-criminal cases such as habeas corpus, as well as juvenile justice cases. Until 2011 when Illinois abolished the death penalty, we also include direct appeals to the Supreme Court from
We’ve all heard it any number of times: the appellate courts only review final judgments. Even if you can figure out a theory to take a non-final judgment up, the appellate courts won’t decide it on the grounds that it isn’t necessary – let it percolate out, and maybe the case will settle, or the
Today 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
For 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
Last 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
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
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
We’ve been looking at the sources of appellate jurisdiction for the Illinois Supreme Court’s civil docket. Does the Court prefer to review final decisions with fully formed records? How often does the Court review interlocutory decisions?
Between 2000 and 2004, Rule 301 appeals comprised between sixty and seventy percent of the Court’s civil docket.
Between
In our last post, we began looking at the sources of appellate jurisdiction on the Illinois Supreme Court’s civil docket. Does the Court mostly review final decisions? If the Court frequently hears interlocutory appeals on its civil docket, does it show a preference for any particular kind of interlocutory appeal – constitutional cases or appeals
The most fundamental rule of appellate jurisdiction in Illinois is Supreme Court Rule 301, which makes “[e]very final judgment of a circuit court” appealable “as of right.” Rule 301 operates in cases which have passed through the appellate system in the usual way, first being decided by one of the five districts of the Appellate