Last time, we reviewed the reversal rates at the Supreme Court in criminal cases for the Divisions of Chicago’s First District of the Appellate Court.  This time, we’re looking at the reversal rates across the rest of the state. The Third District fared worst from 1990 to 2020, with a collective reversal rate of 64.18%.  The Fourth and Fifth Districts were almost tied – the 4th at 56.89% and the 5th, 56.25%.  The Second District…

This week, we’re reviewing the reversal rates for the Appellate Court in criminal cases since 1990.  First up, the six Divisions of Chicago’s First District of the Appellate Court. Since 1990, Division One of the First has fared worst, with a reversal rate in criminal cases of 57.14%.  Division Three was next at 56.52%.  The reversal rate in Division Two was 56.25%.  Division Four’s reversal rate 1990-2020 was 55.56%.  The best two Divisions were Five,…

Long-time readers may have noticed that a few things have changed around here in recent days.  And that brings us to our two exciting announcements. First, I’ve moved my practice to the San Francisco office of Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP. I’ve known and respected Arnold & Porter for its brilliant lawyers and its long-term unwavering commitment to the rule of law since I started my career in Washington D.C. at Skadden Arps.  In…

Today, we’re discussing the civil reversal rates from 1990 to 2020 for the Districts of the Appellate Court outside of Chicago – Two, Three, Four and Five. Not surprisingly to long-time readers of this blog, the Fifth District leads with a reversal rate in civil cases of 72.43%.  The other three districts are quite close – Third District, 57.14%, Fourth District, 55.36% and Second District, 54.25%. The Second District was most common on the Court’s…

This week, we’re returning to perhaps the most often-written-about statistics in judicial analytics: reversal rates.  First up, the Divisions of Chicago’s First District of the Appellate Court in civil cases. The overall numbers for Divisions One through Six are reported in Table 1695.  All six Divisions are relatively close.  The highest reversal rate 1990-2020 was Division 2 at 61.18%.  Division Three’s civil decisions have been reversed 59.09% of the time.  Division Six’s reversal rate is…

Last time, we showed that there is a mild relationship between the total time pending from the grant of the petition for leave to appeal until final decision by the Supreme Court and the ultimate case result in civil cases: more often than not, affirmances took longer.  Below, we’re reviewing the Court’s criminal cases. In criminal cases, there is a quite strong relationship between lag time and case result, but the relationship goes in the…

This week, we’re addressing a new issue: does the lag time from the grant of a party’s petition for leave to appeal to a final decision from the Supreme Court tell us anything about what the result is likely to be?  We begin with the civil docket for the years 2011 through 2020. What we see in Table 1693 is that there does seem to be at least a mild relationship between lag time and…