Court Appeals Double in 10 Years : Far Outpace Increases in Arrests and Trials, Study Finds

Appeals in the nation’s state court systems more than doubled between 1973 and 1983, far outpacing increases in the rate of arrests, trials and most other components of the criminal justice system, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported Sunday.

The study, the most comprehensive to date of state appellate caseloads, found a 107% increase in criminal appeals and a 114% increase in civil appeals in the 42 states and the District of Columbia where data was available.

During the same 10 years, the rate of growth in appeals was exceeded only by the 131% increase in state prison commitments, and was double the increase in the FBI Crime Index and triple the increase in arrests, the researchers noted.

“These numbers are important because they show that appellate court caseloads have grown at a greater rate than other components of the justice system during most of the past decade,” Steven R. Schlesinger, director of the bureau, said in releasing the report.

The statistical bureau, an office within the Department of Justice, reported that in California, civil appeals increased 120% and criminal appeals 66% over the 10-year period under review. With seven members of the state Supreme Court and 74 judges on the state Court of Appeal, the state’s appellate judges were deciding an average of 97 cases per judge annually as of 1983, the study said.

Nationally, criminal cases represented about 44% of the 675,000 appeals included in the survey. That was a sharp increase over previous decades, when the rate stayed near 10% to 15%.

Schlesinger cited several factors as the likely causes of that increase: Supreme Court decisions granting new rights to criminal defendants that could be used as the basis for appeal; a 1963 ruling by the high court giving indigents the right to free counsel on appeal, and significant increases in crime, arrests and criminal prosecutions that provided more cases that could be appealed.

The study was issued amid continuing concern over growing court caseloads in the United States, most of it focusing on the federal court system. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, in his 1984 year-end report on the judiciary, called the caseload increase during his nearly 16-year tenure “dramatic,” and warned that “there are limits to the number of cases a judge can decide.”

New Courts Created

Nonetheless, the overall 112% increase in criminal and civil state appeals during the decade exceeded even the 90% increase in federal court appeals.

Authorities on state courts interviewed Friday noted that in recent years, states striving to handle the wave of cases had been forced to create new courts, to streamline procedures and to place some limits on the right to appeal. Some states have given their highest appeal courts the discretion to refuse to formally review cases that already have been reviewed by intermediate appeal courts.

“Some states have also cut down on the amount of oral argument allowed in a case, some have made oral argument optional and some require attorneys to provide good reason for oral argument,” said Gene Flango of the National Center for State Courts in Williamsburg, Va. “But no state has come up with a solution that can be applied to all.”

Eleven states have established new intermediate courts of appeal, reviewing trial court rulings before they can be appealed to the state’s supreme court, according to Mary Elsner of the center.

Thomas B. Marvell of the Appellate Justice Center in Williamsburg noted that some larger appellate courts have turned increasingly to summary actions--for example, deciding cases without writing full opinions to explain their decisions. “By and large, courts across the country are not falling behind with bigger backlogs,” he said. “What they are doing is deciding cases more expeditiously.”

However, Marvell acknowledged that attorneys now are frequently expressing concern with the limited amount of time courts are able to spend on appeals, fearing they are not receiving the attention they deserve.

The study said that ordinarily, the increase in appeals might reflect a growing number of trials. But over the 10-year period, the number of trials increased only slightly, it said.

The report said it is possible that more attorneys and litigants were deciding to appeal trial rulings or that such non-trial proceedings as civil summary judgments or guilty pleas in criminal cases were being appealed.