This is part 2 in a series of posts reviewing the dockets at the Court of Appeal for the past thirty-plus years and their impact on the work of the Supreme Court.  This time, we review the data for newly filed original writ proceedings.

We showed last time that Notices of Appeal declined between 1996 and 2000, although not as sharply as they have recently.  But in contrast, writ petitions actually increased.  In 1996, there were 1,320 writ petitions in the First District.  In 2000, there were 1,456.  Filings were up more than ten percent in the Second District between 1996 and 1997 before stepping back a bit.  There were 759 new writ petitions in the Third District in 1996 and 873 in 2000.  Petitions in the Fourth District were up a bit, from 1,956 in 1996 to 2,108 in 2000.  Filings were up sharply in the Fifth District – by 30% – and in the Sixth District, by 21%.  There were 598 new petitions in the Fifth in 1996, growing to 778 by 2000.  There were 375 petitions in the Sixth District in 1996, growing to 455 in 2000.

Next time, we’ll review the Notices of Appeal and original proceedings data for the years 2001 through 2010.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Tracie Hall (no changes).