The California Supreme Court: 2017 by the numbers

Today, we're beginning our review of the analytics for the California Supreme Court in 2017 to see what insights we can gain about the Justices' voting patterns and decision-making dynamics. There's been considerable speculation that Gov. Jerry Brown's second and third appointments, Justices Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar and Leondra Kruger, have turned the court toward the left, a trend some think will accelerate once Justice Kathryn Werdegar's successor is nominated. But so far, the data suggests that the court's center has dominated in most areas of the law.

In this first installment of a two-part series, we will break down the numbers of what types of cases the court heard, where they came from, and the how the court ruled. In part two, we will zoom in and look at the justices by the numbers.

Docket Demographics

In 2017, the Supreme Court decided 42 civil cases and 42 cases involving criminal, quasi-criminal, juvenile and attorney discipline issues, for a total of 84 cases.

Vacancy Impact. There's little evidence that the prolonged vacancy in Justice Werdegar's seat is slowing down the court's productivity. In 2016, the court handed down 88 decisions. In 2015 and 2014, during the last extended vacancy at the court, the court handed down 76 and 78 decisions, respectively. Pro tem justices cast 28 votes in 2015 and 42 in 2014. In 2011, the court filed 84 decisions, with 64 pro tem votes. The only break in this pattern was in 2012, when the court issued 103 decisions.

Publication. Conventional wisdom holds that litigants have no chance of getting Supreme Court review unless the Court of Appeal publishes its decision and there's a dissent. That hasn't actually been true for many years, and 2017 was no exception. Only 19 percent of the civil docket had a dissent at the Court of Appeal, and only 7 percent of the criminal docket did. Seventy-eight percent of the civil docket was from published decisions of the Court of Appeal, but 21.43 percent of the cases were unpublished below. Publication was even less important on the criminal side of the docket -- only 45.24 percent of the criminal cases handed down by the court were published below.

Civil. Thirteen of the Supreme Court's civil cases principally involved civil procedure issues. Nine involved government and administrative law, and five cases involved constitutional law. Nine of the civil procedure cases were plaintiffs' wins below, and the court reversed in six of those. Government entities won six of the nine cases relating to government and administrative cases below, but half those wins were reversed. Government entities won only one of the three cases where they had lost below. The court also decided three cases each in environmental and tort law.

Criminal. On the criminal side of the docket, the Supreme Court decided seven cases involving sentencing law issues, six involving criminal procedure, five involving constitutional law issues, four involving violent crime issues, and three involving juvenile issues. Six of the seven cases involving sentencing law were won by the state below; the court reversed in whole or in part in half of those cases. The court decided only one sentencing law case won by the defendant below and affirmed it. Four of the five constitutional law cases in the criminal docket were won by the state below, and three of those four wins were affirmed.

Appellate Avenues

Not surprisingly given the population distribution, Los Angeles is the biggest single source of cases on both sides of the docket.

Civil. A third of the civil docket originated in Los Angeles County Superior Court. San Diego produced 9.52 percent of the docket and Sacramento and Marin produced 7.14 percent apiece. Just shy of 5 percent of the Supreme Court's civil docket consisted of certified 9th Circuit questions that originated in the Central District of California.

Seventeen of the Supreme Court's civil cases arose from the 2nd District -- five from Division 3, three from Division 2, two each from Divisions 1, 6 and 8, and one apiece from Divisions 4, 5 and 7. Another five cases came from the 1st District -- one each from Divisions 1 through 5. Ten civil cases arose from the 4th District -- six from Division 1, one from Division 2 and three from Division 3. The Supreme Court decided three civil cases from the 3rd District, three from the 5th District, one from the 6th District and two cases on certified question review from the 9th Circuit.

Criminal. On the criminal law side, Los Angeles accounted for 26.19 percent of the docket. San Diego produced 14.29 percent and Riverside County another 11.9 percent. San Bernardino County accounted for 9.52 percent of the criminal cases. Contra Costa and Orange produced two cases each -- 4.76 percent of the criminal docket.

On the criminal side of the docket, nine cases started in the 2nd District -- three in Division 8, two each in Divisions 5 and 6 and one each in Divisions 2 and 4. The Supreme Court decided two criminal cases from the 1st District -- one from Division 1, one from Division 3. The court decided 14 cases from the 4th District -- five from Division 1, eight from Division 1 and one from Division 3. The court decided two criminal cases each from the 3rd and 5th Districts, one from the 6th District, and 12 on direct review from the trial courts.

Decision Dynamics

Timing. Delay in the appellate courts has been a major source of debate both in California and around the country in recent years. The California Supreme Court averaged 641.12 days from the grant of review to oral argument on the civil side. On the criminal side, cases average 1,380.28 days from inception to oral argument. Because the court must decide all cases within 90 days of oral argument, the lag time data from argument to decision is almost identical -- 78.81 days for civil cases, 81.74 days for criminal cases.

Briefs. The California Supreme Court differs from most state supreme courts in that it routinely accepts most amicus briefs. In 2017, there were an average of 2.095 amicus briefs supporting petitioners, 1.667 supporting respondents, and 0.167 supporting neither side. There's some evidence suggesting that amicus briefs help -- winners in civil cases averaged 2.05 amicus briefs supporting their position, while losing parties averaged 1.74.

Unanimous. The Supreme Court's unanimity rate was comparable to most recent years on the civil side. In all, the court decided 76.19 percent of its civil cases unanimously. A year earlier, two-thirds of the court's civil decisions were unanimous. In 2015, 87.5 percent of the court's civil decisions were unanimous, and 69.57 percent were the year before that.

Affirmed. The court affirmed in 57.14 percent of its civil cases -- a significant increase over 2016, when it affirmed in only 41.18 percent of civil cases. On the criminal side, the court affirmed in 41.03 percent of cases last year, almost identical to the 45.1 percent affirmed a year earlier.

Reversed. The court reversed 58.82 percent of the civil cases from the 2nd District and 40 percent of the cases from the 4th District. It reversed four of five civil cases from the 1st District and two of three cases from the 3rd and 5th Districts. The court reversed its only civil case from the 6th District. It reversed in 71.43 percent of its criminal cases from the 4th District, but in only a third of its cases from the 2nd District. The court reversed in one of two criminal cases from the 1st, 3rd and 5th Districts.

In the next installment of this series, we will zoom in on how the justices participated on the court in 2017.