How Has the Length of the Court’s Opinions in Criminal Cases Changed Over...
Last week, we began our study of the length of the Court’s opinions since 1990 with a look at the civil docket, looking at such questions as whether opinions are getting consistently longer or shorter,...
View ArticleHow Has the Length of the Court’s Opinions in Criminal Cases Changed Over...
Yesterday, we reviewed the Court’s year-by-year experience with the length of its opinions (majorities, special concurrences and dissents) in criminal cases for the years 1990 through 2003. Today,...
View ArticleDoes It Take More Pages to Reverse Than to Affirm in Civil Cases (1990-2003)?
I remember many years ago my first-year Criminal Law professor telling us that you can always tell within the first five pages how an appellate criminal law case involving violent crime will come out:...
View ArticleDoes It Take More Pages to Reverse Than to Affirm in Civil Cases (2004-2018)?
Last time, we began looking at a new question: are majority opinions reversing the Appellate Court on average longer than majorities affirming the result below? Between 1990 and 2003, the answer was,...
View ArticleDoes It Take More Pages to Reverse Than to Affirm in Criminal Cases (1990-2003)?
Last time, we took our first look at a new question: do majority opinions in civil cases tend to be longer when the Court reverses than when it affirms? The answer, for a substantial majority of...
View ArticleDoes It Take More Pages to Reverse Than to Affirm in Criminal Cases (2004-2018)?
Yesterday, we showed that in contrast to our result in civil cases, when majority opinions reversing tended most years to be longer than majority opinions affirming, the opposite was generally true in...
View ArticleWho Wrote the Longest Majority Opinions in Civil Cases (Part 1)?
For the past several weeks, we’ve been looking for insights into the Court’s decision-making processes by reviewing the data for the length of the Court’s opinions. This week and next, we’re looking...
View ArticleWho Wrote the Longest Majority Opinions in Civil Cases (Part 2)?
Yesterday, we began reviewing the Justice-by-Justice data for majority opinions in civil cases, beginning with the total number of majorities written each year. Today, we’re looking at the average...
View ArticleWho Wrote the Longest Majority Opinions in Criminal Cases Each Year Since...
Over the past two weeks, we’ve reviewed the data on the distribution of the Court’s majority opinions in civil cases, and which Justice wrote the longest and shortest majorities each year. Today,...
View ArticleWho Wrote the Longest Majority Opinions in Criminal Cases Each Year Since...
Last time, we reviewed the data on the distribution of majority opinions in criminal cases from 1990 to 2018. This time, we’re reviewing the lengths of each Justice’s majorities. In 1990, Justice...
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