Last time, we looked at the data on cases which had a dissenter at the Appellate Court, and whether they’re more likely to have at least one dissenter at the Supreme Court.  This week, we’re looking at a new question – how much of the court’s civil and criminal dockets consists of decisions which were published at the Appellate Court?

In Table 678, we report the number of civil cases the court decided which were published at the Appellate Court.  On the face of it, it seems that published decisions are declining on the Court’s civil docket.  In 1990, fifty-six of the court’s civil decisions were published below.  In 1991, that dropped to 43, but in 1992 and 1994, it was even higher: 67 in 1992, 63 in 1994.

In 1995, 45 of the Court’s civil decisions were published below.  Since then, the yearly number has generally been in the high 20s and 30s.  In 1996, 34 of the court’s civil decisions were published below.  In 1997, 38 were.  Forty-seven were in 1998, but in the next five years, that fell to 30, 28, 29, 36 and 37.  Forty civil decisions were published below in 2004.  In 2005, 33 were.  In 2006, it was 43.  In 2007, 29 civil decisions were published below.  In 2008, 40 cases were published, but the number has been consistently lower since: 33 in 2009, 29 in 2010, 36 in 2011, 34 in 2012, 31 in 2013, 15 in 2014, 35 in 2015, 20 in 2016 and 25 in 2017.

But these are just the raw numbers.  Is the apparent drop in published lower court decisions in the Court’s civil docket a real trend, or a result of the total caseload edging downward in recent years?  In our next table, we report published Appellate Court decisions as a percentage of the total civil docket.

The table shows that the apparent downward trend in civil cases published below is indeed a result of a slightly lower case load, rather than the court consistently hearing more Rule 23 orders.  In 1990, 62.92% of the Court’s civil decisions were published below.  In 1991, it was 81.13%; in 1992, 72.83%; in 1993, 82.05%; in 1994, 84%, and in 1995, 80.36%.  In 1996, 61.82% of the court’s civil decisions were published below.  That figure remained fairly flat for the next two years – 60.32% in 1997, 66.2% in 1998.  In 1999, 73.17% of the civil docket was published below.  In 2000, 73.68% was.  In 2001, 56.86% of the civil docket was published below.  In 2002, 72% was.  The following year, 80.43% was published below, but in 2004, the number fell slightly to 74.07%, and again in 2005 to 68.75%.

In 2006, 87.76% of the civil decisions were published below.  There was a one-year dip in 2007 to 70.73%, but the number was consistent for the six years following: 95.24% in 2008; 80.48% in 2009; 87.88% in 2010; 94.74% in 2011; 85% in 2012 and 91.18% in 2013.  In 2014, the published share of the civil docket dropped to 55.56%, but it rose back to 79.55% in 2015, 71.43% in 2016 and 92.59% in 2017.

Join us back here tomorrow as we review the numbers for the criminal side of the docket.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Marco Verch (no changes).