Since its creation in 1978, the Arkansas Court of Appeals has worked with the Supreme Court to provide major relief for the tremendous increase in appeals which first challenged the Arkansas appellate court system during the 1970's. The number of appeals continued to grow at such a tremendous rate, however, that the Court of Appeals was no longer able to accommodate further increase. Legislation first adopted during the 1993 legislative session increased the Court of Appeals to twelve members from its current six members. Three new judges were added in 1996 and an additional three judges will be added in 1997. The new appointees included Judges Wendell Griffen, John Stroud, and Olly Neal. The Court continues to sit in panels of three judges each.

The workload of the Court of Appeals is measured by the number of appeals, petitions, and motions considered by the Court during the fiscal year. Appeals filed during 1995-96 totaled 1,077 cases, a decrease of 6% from a record-setting year in 1994-95. However, appeal terminations for the year totaled 1,042 cases, in increase of 11%.

Workload is also measured by the number of majority opinions written by each judge. In 1995-96, each member of the Court of Appeals averaged 76 majority opinions, 1.5 concurring opinions, and 6 dissenting opinions.

The backlog of cases has, for several years, had a negative effect on the amount of time required to process a case through the Court of Appeals. The effect is greater in civil cases since criminal cases, by statute are given priority. The increased size of the Court will help to alleviate the backlog of cases so long as the number of new case filings does not increase dramatically. During 1995-96, it required an average of 896 days to process a criminal case from its filing in the lower court through the decision on appeal, an increase of 12% over 1994-95. The time to process a civil case rose from 842 days in 1994-95 to 851 days in 1995-96. A very small percentage of this time, however, is spent at the Court of Appeals level. Much of it is spent at the trial level and in the preparation of the trial court record. From the time a case is submitted to the Court of Appeals, a decision is handed down, on average, in 26 days for criminal cases and 30 days for civil cases.