The Arkansas Supreme Court was created in 1836 and met for the first time on January 24, 1837. The Court esablished, as one of its early goals, a standard of fairness and speedy dispatch in its deliberations and opinion process.

For many years, the Court has 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 has continued to grow since that time. The expansion of the Court of Appeals in 1996 and 1997 will greatly aid the administration of justice at the appellate court level. 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, is 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. Appeals filed in the Supreme Court totaled 548 in 1995-96, the same number as was filed in 1994-95. The number of appeals, petitions, and motions filed was 864, an increase of 2% over the previous year. While the Supreme Court has a good record for maintaining the currency of its cases, there were 297 appeals pending at the end of the fiscal year, an increase of 18% over the previous year. Justices also averaged writing and publishing 56 majority opinions during the year.

It required an average of 697 days in criminal cases and 808 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 a slight increase from 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 16 days for criminal cases and 21 days for civil cases. These time periods, while small, have been gradually increasing over the past five years.

The Court was also very active in dealing with a myriad of administrative issues throughout the court system. With the approval of the expansion of the size of the Court of Appeals, an examination of the division of cases between the two courts has begun. The Court also responded to a number of recommendations from its committees and effected several changes in court rules and procedures. Through its administrative and adjudicative responsibilities, the Court has remained committed to its original goal of providing its citizens with a forum which provides fair and impartial decisions in a short period of time.