NCSC: Research: Court Statistics Project

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CSP Home > State Court Trial Trends

The Court Statistics Project (CSP) at the NCSC has compiled the most extensive information currently available on trial trends in general jurisdiction courts. The State Court Disposition Trends database contains both trial and non-trial disposition information from nearly half of the 50 states for the 27-year period from 1976-2002. While most information is available only for broad case classifications (total criminal and total civil), finer detail (felony, tort, contract, and real property) was captured when possible.

Selected Data - State Court Dispostion Trends
Selected data from the State Court Disposition Trends database is presented below. There are 23 states included in criminal data, representing 58 percent of the nation's 2002 population, and 13 states (40 percent of the population) are included in the felony data. The 22 states included in the civil data comprised 59 percent of the nation’s 2002 population, and the 10 states shown in the general civil data accounted for 34 percent of the total 2002 population.

Criminal Data:
Criminal Dispositions and Trials, 1976-2002
Criminal Jury and Bench Trials (per state), 1976-2002
Felony Data:
Felony Dispositions and Trials, 1976-2002
Felony Jury and Bench Trials (per state), 1976-2002
Civil Data:
Civil Dispositions and Trials, 1976-2002
Civil Jury and Bench Trials (per state), 1976-2002
General Civil Data:
General Civil Dispositions and Trials, 1992-2002
General Civil Jury and Bench Trials (per state), 1992-2002

Federal and State Trial Trends

An analysis of trial trends in the state courts is presented in "Examining Trial Trends in State Courts: 1976-2002." For a complete copy of the article, see Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (JELS), Volume 1, Issue 3, November 2004. Also included in this issue of JELS are the articles presented at ABA's "Vanishing Trials" symposium (held in December 2003). All articles discuss the various causes and consequences of the "vanishing" trial.

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies

Examining Trial Trends in State Courts: 1976-2002

Prepared by:
Brian J. Ostrom, Ph.D.
Shauna M. Strickland
Paula L. Hannaford-Agor

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