These tables are derived from information contained in 88 Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions filed between September 1, 2002, and August 31, 2003. The total of 88 decisions does not include the following items contained in the Supreme Court’s listing of opinions and dispositional orders for this period: (1) decisions arising from lawyer-regulation matters; and (2) orders arising from petitions for review and motions for reconsideration.
In addition to the 88 decisions noted above, three deadlocked (3-3) per curiam decisions were filed: State v. Agnello; State v. Greer; and Wenke v. Gehl Co. These are included only in the “Number of Oral Arguments Presented” table.
The year under consideration also witnessed an unusual outcome in Digicorp, Inc. v. Ameritech Corp. Here, Justices Abrahamson and Wilcox did not participate; Justices Bradley and Bablitch dissented; Justices Crooks and Prosser supported the “majority” opinion, and Justice Sykes concurred in part and dissented in part in an opinion that is difficult to categorize as either a concurrence or a dissent according to the guidelines that I follow in these circumstances.[1] Consequently, I will include this case only in the “Days Between Oral Argument and Opinion Filing” table and the “Number of Oral Arguments Presented” table. All of the decisions may be found on the Wisconsin Court System website. http://wicourts.gov/
The tables are available as a complete set and by individual topic according to the subsets listed below.
Four-to-Three Decisions
Decisions Arranged by Vote Split
Frequency of Justices in the Majority
Distribution of Opinion Authorship
Frequency of Agreement Between Pairs of Justices
Average Time Between Oral Argument and Opinions Authored by Each Justice
Number of Oral Arguments Presented by Individual Firms and Agencies
[1] When a justice concurs in part and dissent in part, the opinion is classified as a dissent if it dissents from the majority result on one or more issues. If the opinion concurs with the majority result on all issues but disputes the majority’s reasoning in reaching some portion (or all) of this result, the opinion is classified as a concurrence.
About Alan Ball
Speak Your Mind