The Arkansas Supreme Court was created in 1836 and met for the first time on January 24, 1837. The Court established, as one of its early goals, a standard of fairness and speedy dispatch in its deliberations and opinion process.

For many years, the Court operated with one of the nation's heaviest per-judge appellate court workloads. The creation of the Court of Appeals in 1978 greatly eased the burden, but the number of cases continued to grow. The expansion of the Court of Appeals in 1996 and 1997 from six to twelve judges greatly improved the administration of justice at the appellate court level. With slight revisions in the rules which divide cases between the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, cases have been shifted from the Supreme Court to the Court of Appeals. This has decreased the case-per-judge average of the Supreme Court without increasing the average of the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court's historical dedication to its "fast track" system, where citizens are assured of a written opinion, on average, within two weeks of the time of submission, continues to be unique among state courts of last resort in the United States.

The workload of appellate courts is generally measured by the number of cases filed (including appeals and petitions) and disposed of during the year and by counting the number of majority opinions which were written by each justice. The number of appeals filed in the Supreme Court totaled 401, an increase over the previous year's total of 354. The total caseload of appeals and petitions filed was 878, a slight increase from 864 the previous year. The Supreme Court has a good record for maintaining the currency of its cases. Despite the increase in the number of filings, the Court was able to maintain the number of appeals pending at the end of the year from 270 in 2000 to 239 this year. Justices also averaged writing and publishing majority opinions during the year, in addition to concurring, dissenting and per curiam opinions. Total opinions averaged 58 per justice in 2001 compared to 59 opinions in 2000.

Supreme Court 354 401 Civil 158 Criminal 196 Civil 219     Criminal 182   Calendar Year 2000 2001

It required an average of 839 days in criminal cases and 688 days in civil cases for an action to be filed in the trial court and a final decision to be reached in the Supreme Court. This marks an increase in criminal cases and a decrease in civil cases over the year 2000. Only a small percentage of this time, however, is spent at the appellate level. From the time a case is submitted to the Supreme Court, a decision is handed down, on average, in 14 days for criminal cases and 13 days for civil cases.

The Court was also very active in dealing with a myriad of administrative issues throughout the court system. Most of these were related to the court's leadership role in the implementation of Amendment 80. With the benefit of the recommendations from a broad based, court-appointed committee, the court revised its rules of civil and criminal procedures, rules of appellate procedure, inferior court rules and a number of administrative orders to respond to the changes in trial court structure. The court also adopted a new order which put in place a system for the development and review of administrative plans in each of the judicial districts. Changes in the Code of Judicial Conduct were adopted to accommodate the move from partisan to non-partisan judicial elections.

In the midst of all the constitutional changes, the Supreme Court also changed is physical location during 2001. After a three-year planning and construction project, the new Justice Building - west wing was completed and dedicated on April 27, 2001. Included in the building are the chambers and conference room of the Supreme Court.