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The
Arkansas Court of Appeals |
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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 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 1997-98 totaled 1,485 cases, an
increase of over 32% over 1996-97. Appeal terminations for the year totaled 1,524 cases,
an increase of almost 16% over the last year. This increase is due to the availability of
the additional judges on the Court and the shifting of cases from the Supreme Court to the
Court of Appeals. The increase in the size of the Court has also allowed the Court to
dramatically increase its terminations and thereby decrease the size of the pending
caseload. The number of cases pending dropped from 800 in 1996-97 to 761 in 1997-98, a
decline of 23% over the last two years.
Workload is also measured by the number of majority opinions written by each judge. In
1997-98, each member of the Court of Appeals averaged almost 70 majority opinions, 2.9
concurring opinions, and 5 dissenting opinions. |
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| 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 has begun to alleviate the
backlog of cases. During 1997-98, it required an average of 658 days to process a criminal
case from its filing in the lower court through the decision on appeal, a substantial
decrease from 1996-97. The time to process a civil case declined from 732 days in 1996-97
to 703 days in 1997-98. 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 27 days for civil
cases. |
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The
Arkansas Court of Appeals |
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| Front Row (L-R): Judge Judith Rogers, Judge John Pittman,
Chief Justice John Robbins, Judge Margaret Meads, Judge John Stroud Back Row (L-R) Judge Terry Crabtree, Judge John Jennings, Judge Wendell
Griffen, Judge Frank Arey, Judge Olly Neal, Judge Sam Bird, Judge Andree L. Roaf |
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