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
Yesterday, we addressed the Illinois Supreme Court’s rate of dissent in civil cases since 2000. But a 6-1 decision counts as not being unanimous – how many of these cases saw a closely divided Court?
The Court’s percentage of closely divided cases – decisions with two or three dissenting Justices – has remained relatively constant
Last week, we addressed the issue of the lag time between argument and decision as a predictor of whether the Court’s decision will be unanimous. This week, we address the Court’s dissent rate.
Many scholars (and quite a few judges) have argued that an appellate court’s dissent rate does not necessarily reflect how often the