Yesterday, we surveyed the academic literature in oral argument analytics and then reviewed the data for 2016-2020 civil cases from the Supreme Court.  Today, we’re looking at the criminal docket. Between its earliest posted arguments in 2016 and the end of August, the Court asked 8,256 questions in criminal, quasi-criminal, juvenile and mental health matters: 4,514 of appellants and 3,742 of respondents.  In every individual year during that period, questions to appellants have predominated. Next,…

Today, we begin a new subject in our ongoing analytics study of the Court’s decision making – oral arguments.  Although the academic community has been producing analytics studies of appellate decision making for a century, the analytics study of oral arguments is a much more recent development. [We repeat the next five paragraphs for the benefit of any readers who don’t also read our sister blog the Illinois Supreme Court Review, where this material was…

Between 2005 and 2019, the Supreme Court decided 53 civil constitutional law cases.  Thirty-two of those cases involved challenges to state government actions.  Ten cases involved claims of individual rights.  Seven cases involved civil procedure and judicial issues.  Finally, four cases related to challenges to local government actions. Join us back here next Thursday as we proceed to a new issue. Image courtesy of Flickr by tdlucas5000 (no changes).…

In the past two weeks, we’ve taken a deeper look at the Supreme Court’s cases in two areas of law, asking which sub-areas those cases fall in.  Today, we’re moving on to another subject – civil constitutional law cases. Between 1990 and 2004, the Supreme Court decided ninety-six civil constitutional law cases.  Just short of half of those cases – forty-seven in all – dealt with challenges to state government actions.  Twenty-three cases involved claims…

Last week, we drilled down on the Supreme Court’s tort cases, looking year by year at what sub-areas of tort law produced the Court’s cases.  This week, we’re doing the same thing for the Court’s docket of insurance cases.  We’re dividing the field of insurance law into six sub-areas: coverage; separate torts against insurers (outside of coverage under the policy – mostly bad faith); exclusions; defenses; regulatory; and “other.” We begin with the first fifteen…

Between 2005 and 2019, the Supreme Court decided only 29 insurance cases – far fewer than in our first 15 years.  Fourteen of those cases involved coverage questions (although four of those fourteen fell in a single year – 2005).  Three involved insurer torts, four dealt with exclusions, only two addressed defenses, three related to regulatory issues and three fell into our catch-all category of “other” (mostly procedural issues which typically arise in insurance cases).…

Between 2005 and 2019, the Supreme Court decided 73 tort cases (a sharp reduction from the 137 tort cases decided in the preceding 15 years).  The most frequent sub-area in the docket was once again duty, which accounted for 31 cases (but none in 2006, 2010, 2015 or 2019).  There were 25 cases involving tort defenses, including only one in 2005, 2011, 2014-2016 and 2019 and zero in 2013 and 2017.  All other sub-areas of…