The Arkansas Supreme Court

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, petitions, and motions) 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 418, an increase over the previous years total of 370. The total caseload of appeals, petitions, and motions filed was 871, a slight increase from 848 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 fiscal year from 243 in 1998-99 to 250 this year. Justices also averaged writing and publishing 33 majority opinions during the year, in addition to concurring, dissenting and per curiam opinions. Total opinions averaged 59 per justice compared to 58 opinions in 1998-99.

It required an average of 827 days in criminal cases and 813 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 both civil and criminal cases over the previous year. 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 13 days for criminal cases and 16 days for civil cases.

Front Row (left to right): Justice Tom Glaze, Chief Justice W. H. "Dub" Arnold, Justice Don Corbin.

Back Row (left to right): Justice Ray Thornton, Justice Robert Brown, Justice Annabelle Imber, Justice Lavenski Smith.