Today's DJ has Kirk Jenkins' The California Supreme Court during a pandemic: by the numbers, analyzing the court's operations during these unusual times. His findings?
- "seven months into the pandemic, the court appears to have adapted to the emergency quite well"
- In 2018, the average time from filing to grant for decided civil cases was 58.15 days. In 2019, it was 54.38 days. Reviewing the results of all the Supreme Court's conferences since the shutdown began, ... the court has granted review in 11 civil cases. Nine civil cases have received grant-and-hold orders, and eight received grant-and-transfers. Although grants on both the civil and criminal sides are comparatively small data sets, there is some indication that grant orders have slowed down a bit. The 11 civil grants have averaged 62.27 days from filing of the petition to the order -- a week longer than the pre-pandemic 2020 average.
- There is evidence that the processing of the Supreme Court's merits cases has sped up since the lockdown began. For 2020 civil cases argued before the emergency declaration, the average time from the close of briefing to oral argument was 357.73 days. For civil cases argued post-declaration, the average time was more than three weeks shorter -- 333.94 days.
- there is no clear trend in the data for the opinion-writing period -- the average days from oral argument to decision. On the civil side, the wait for a decision has increased just a bit since the lockdown -- 79.45 days pre-lockdown, 80.88 days post-lockdown.
- In 2019, 85.71% of civil decisions and 93.94% of criminal decisions were unanimous. In 2018, 75.61% of civil cases ... were. All of the Court's 2020 civil cases which were argued before March 13 were unanimous decisions. Only 76.47% of the civil cases argued after March 13 have been unanimous decisions.
- For civil cases argued before March 13, the average majority opinion was 27.82 pages. Since March 13, the average has been 36.06 pages.
- on the civil side, there has been a significant increase in the filing of additional opinions. For civil cases argued before March 13, only 18.18% drew additional opinions (either concurrences or dissents). Since the lockdown began, 47.06% of cases have drawn additional opinions.
In other news, Law360 has Kozinski Can't Duck Suit Over Porn Complaints, Atty Says
Because attorney Cyrus Sanai is contending the retaliation occurred under the guise of an administrative agency, Kozinski, the council and several current and former council members should not be able to get the case dismissed under either judicial or quasi-judicial immunity or because federal courts purportedly have no jurisdiction to review decisions by the Judicial Council, the lawyer told the Northern District of California on Tuesday.
Posts
