Just as was true in the 1990s, the presence of a dissenter at the Appellate Court was a mild-to-moderate indicator between 2000 and 2009 that a reversal was more likely in a civil case.  Across the ten years, 61.4% of cases with a dissenter at the Appellate Court were reversed by the Supreme Court, while 53.18% of cases decided unanimously below were reversed.

As we can see in Table 1781, the two data points didn’t diverge much year by year either; although dissenter-below cases were more likely to be reversed in eight of ten years, the difference was minor ini eight of those ten years.  The sole exceptions were 2006, when two-thirds of dissenter-below cases were reversed as compared to 35.14% of no-dissenter cases, and 2007, when once again two-thirds of dissenter-below cases were reversed and 46.15% of no-dissenter cases were.

Join us back here tomorrow as we review the data in criminal cases for thee same period.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Gary Todd (no changes).