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Court of Appeals 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 were added in 1997. The twelve member court sits in four, three-member panels and, when necessary, conducts en banc sessions with six judges. 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 1999-00 totaled 1,355 cases, a slight increase over 1998-99. Appeal terminations for the year totaled 1,327 cases, a decrease from last year's total of 1,354. The increase in the number of judges on the Court has allowed the Court to decrease the size of the pending caseload. The number of cases pending has dropped from 800 in 1996-97 and to 735 in 1999-00. Workload is also measured by the number of majority opinions written by each judge. In 1999-00, each member of the Court of Appeals averaged a total of 77 majority, concurring and dissenting opinions. |
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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 has
begun to alleviate what had been a growing backlog of cases. During
1999-00, it required an average of 692 days to process a criminal
case from its filing in the lower court through the decision on appeal.
The average time to process a civil case was 731 days. 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 24 days
for criminal cases and 29 days for civil cases. |
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