Today's DJ has Jon Eisenberg's What's Ailing The California Supreme Court? Its Productivity Has Plummeted.
- During 2011–2021, the court’s yearly opinion filings steadily declined from a high of 98 opinions in fiscal year 2010–2011 to a low of 59 opinions in fiscal year 2020–2021, with the median at 85 opinions. Compare those numbers with 2000–2010, when the court’s yearly opinion filings ranged from a high of 125 opinions to a low of 96 opinions, with the median at 116 opinions. Across all three measures – highest, lowest, and median – the court’s productivity in 2011–2021 dropped considerably.
- Grants of petitions for review likewise fell, from a median of 86 grants in 2000–2010 to a median of just 59 grants in 2011–2021. The fall from the high of 136 grants in fiscal year 2001–2002 to 41 grants in fiscal year 2020–2021 was 70%.
- Yet the court has been taking substantially longer to decide cases.
- The Judicial Council has not yet published statistics for fiscal year 2021–2022, but opinion production for that period is easily gleaned from Westlaw. The court produced a scant 49 opinions – the court’s worst performance since at least 1987, the earliest year accounted for in the Court Statistics Reports.
- Next year will bring a change in the California Supreme Court’s leadership. One of the new Chief Justice’s top priorities should be to restore the court’s productivity to previous levels.
Bloomberg Law has Supreme Court Justices Should Say Sorry Too -- US Supreme Court justices have committed ethical lapses unapologetically, says Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court. He argues that the justices should be held to the same standard of conduct as other federal judges and should apologize for missteps.
And on a lighter note, here's a fun headline: "Justices cite Judges" -- see p. 4, fn. 1 here (citing Judges 16:30).
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