Tomorrow at 3:00 pm Eastern (noon California time), I will join a panel discussion of the principal differences between state appellate practices around the country. The first in a series, this time we will be discussing Arizona, California and Nevada.
California Supreme Court Review
Understanding Appellate Decision Making
Blog Authors
Latest from California Supreme Court Review
Was There a Correlation Between the Average Length of Majority Opinions in Criminal Cases and the Unanimity Rate (Part 1 – 1990-1999)?
By Kirk Jenkins
We’ve been reviewing the data for the average length of majority opinions during the 1990s and comparing it for correlations to the unanimity rate. In this post, we’re looking at the criminal docket. It turns out that the 1990s were…
Did Longer Majority Opinions in Civil Cases Affect the Unanimity Rate (Part 1 – 1990-1999)?
By Kirk Jenkins
A few posts ago, I noted that analytics research has demonstrated a correlation between the length of majority opinions and the rate of unanimous opinions – shorter opinions, more unanimity; longer opinions and less unanimity. So what happened for civil…
Was the Supreme Court’s Criminal Caseload Decreasing in the 1990s?
By Kirk Jenkins
Today, we’re reviewing the Supreme Court’s criminal docket during the 1990s – were total caseloads declining and was the Court writing longer opinions?
For the decade, the Court decided 523 criminal cases. The Court filed 17,588 pages of majority opinion,…
Was the Supreme Court’s Civil Caseload Declining in the 1990s?
By Kirk Jenkins
This week, we begin our look at the impact of declining Court of Appeal caseloads on the work of the Supreme Court.
We’ll be reviewing three questions in order to analyze the impact of the slow decline in cases at…
Reviewing Declining Dockets at the Court of Appeal, Part 6 – Original Proceedings, 2011-2021
By Kirk Jenkins
The sharpest decline in original proceedings between 2011 and 2021 was in the Fourth District – 41.43%. The Fifth District was second, declining 39.06%. New filings in the Third District were down 38.43%. New original proceedings are down in the…
Reviewing Declining Dockets, Part 5 – New Notices of Appeal, 2011-2021
By Kirk Jenkins
This week, we’re wrapping up our review of the Court of Appeal’s dockets over the past twenty years, tracking the declines in the court’s docket.
The steepest decline across the eleven years occurred in the Third District, where new notices…
Reviewing Declining Dockets, Part 4 – Original Proceedings, 2001-2010
By Kirk Jenkins
Today, we’re reviewing the data for new original proceedings – petitions for writ of mandate, mandamus and the like – between 2001 and 2010. With the exception of the Fifth District, which saw a 24% increase in original proceedings, the…
Reviewing Declining Dockets, Part 3 – Notices of Appeal, 2001-2010
By Kirk Jenkins
This time we’re reviewing the data for new Notices of Appeal in the Court of Appeal for the years 2001 through 2010, tracking the decline in appellate dockets and assessing the impact on the Supreme Court’s work.
Across the decade,…
Reviewing Declining Dockets, Part 2 – New Original Proceedings, 1996-2000
By Kirk Jenkins
This is part 2 in a series of posts reviewing the dockets at the Court of Appeal for the past thirty-plus years and their impact on the work of the Supreme Court. This time, we review the data for newly…