THE ARKANSAS 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 that challenged the Arkansas appellate court system during the 1970's. The number of appeals has grown at such a tremendous rate, however, that the Court of Appeals is no longer able to accommodate further increase.

Legislation was adopted during the 1993 legislative session to increase the Court of Appeals to twelve members. In 1995 the General Assembly amended the law. Governor Tucker appointed three new judges who took office on January 1, 1996. The legislation allows the Governor to appoint three more new judges to take office on January 1, 1997. The Governor has announced only one appointment for the remaining three positions on the Court of Appeals, Judge David Burnett.

The workload in 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 1994-95 totaled 1,141 cases, an increase of over 4%. Appeal terminations for the year totaled 939 cases, a slight decrease from the 1993-94 levels.

Workload is also measured by the number of major opinions written by each judge. In 1994-95, each member of the Court of Appeals averaged 98 majority opinions, 3 concurring opinions, and 8 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. During 1994-95, it required an average of 802 days to process a criminal case from its filing in the lower court through the decision on appeal, an increase of 6% over 1993-94. The time to process a civil case rose from 722 days in 1993-94 to 842 days in 1994-95. A very small percentage of this time, however, is spent at the Court of Appeals level. Much of it is spent at the pre 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 26 days for criminal cases and 33 days for civil cases.