Message From the Director

This report contains statistical profiles for the 12 regional U.S. courts of appeals and the 94 U.S. district courts. The format for the report, approved by the Judicial Conference Subcommittee on Judicial Statistics, is intended to provide historical information for each court and to present caseload data in a slightly different format from annual and semiannual reports. In addition to total caseload information, the report presents data based on the number of judgeships authorized by statute.

District court caseload figures are divided by the number of authorized judgeship positions in each court to provide caseload per judgeship. Cases in the courts of appeals are generally handled by panels of three judges; therefore, caseload figures are shown per panel. The figures per judgeship and per panel allow comparisons between courts of different sizes.

Reaching all-time highs in the U.S. courts of appeals, filings rose 4 percent in 1996 to 51,991 and case terminations rose 1 percent to 50,413. The overall increase in appeals was due mainly to a 13 percent increase in prisoner petition appeals and to a 7 percent increase in criminal appeals. Following two years of decline, criminal appeal filings rose largely because of appeals related to fraud and drugs, which surged 24 percent and 13 percent, respectively. These increases appear consistent with last year's growth in criminal filings of these types in the U.S. district courts. In 1996, the median time from filing to disposition for cases in the courts of appeals mirrored the 1995 figure of 10.4 months. The number of sitting senior judges, which had increased each year for the previous seven years, dropped 3 percent this year to 78.

In the U.S. district courts, filings rose 8 percent in 1996 to 304,535. Total weighted filings per judgeship increased 5 percent from 448 to 472. Civil filings increased 8 percent over 1995 and 28 percent over 1991, reaching a total of 269,132. The 8 percent rise in civil filings consisted mostly of private cases pertaining to diversity of citizenship and federal question jurisdiction. Diversity of citizenship filings increased 18 percent, primarily because of a 56 percent surge in personal injury/product liability filings, which mostly consisted of breast implant cases. Federal question litigation involving personal injury cases leaped 82 percent, mostly as a result of new oil refinery explosion cases filed in the Middle District of Louisiana. Following two years of decline, criminal felony cases filed (excluding transfers) rose 6 percent to 34,729, with increases in cases related to immigration and to drugs primarily responsible for the rise.

The court profile pages in this report provide more detailed summaries of the caseloads of the courts of appeals (excluding the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals) and of the district courts on both a national basis and a local court basis.

Any comments you have on the content and format of this report are welcome.

 

Leonidas Ralph Mecham
Director
March 1997