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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 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. The Court shared in the state's historic decrease in
overall caseloads. Appeals filed during 1998-99 totaled 1,300 cases,
a decrease of 12% from 1997-98. Appeal terminations for the year
totaled 1,354 cases, a decrease of 11% from the last year. The
increase in the number of judges on the Court has allowed the Court
to dramatically decrease the size of the pending caseload. The
number of cases pending dropped from 800 in 1996-97 to 761 in 1997-98
to 707 in 1998-99.
Workload is also measured by the number of majority opinions
written by each judge. In 1998-99, each member of the Court of
Appeals averaged a total of 82 majority, concurring and 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 has
begun to alleviate what had been a growing backlog of cases. During
1998-99, it required an average of 683 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 744 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 23 days for criminal cases and 29 days for civil cases.
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The
Arkansas Court of Appeals |
| Front
Row (Left to Right): Judge Jo Hart, Judge John
Pittman, Chief Judge John Robbins, Judge Terry
Crabtree, Judge Margaret Meads, Judge John Stroud. |
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| Back
Row (Left to Right): Judge John Jennings, Judge
Wendell Griffen, Judge Olly Neal, Judge Andree Roaf,
Judge Sam Bird, Judge Judith Rogers. |
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