DOI: 10.3886/icpsr08429.v4
title: Federal Court Cases: Integrated Data Base, 1970-2000
title: Version 4

description: The purpose of this data collection is to provide an official public record of the business of the federal courts. The data originate from 94 district and 12 appellate court offices throughout the United States. Information was obtained at two points in the life of a case: filing and termination. The termination data contain information on both filing and terminations, while the pending data contain only filing information. For the appellate and civil data, the unit of analysis is a single case. The unit of analysis for the criminal data is a single defendant.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Performed consistency checks.; Standardized missing values.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Criminal Terminations for 1970 
 DS2: Criminal Terminations for 1971 
 DS3: Criminal Terminations for 1972 
 DS4: Criminal Terminations for 1973 
 DS5: Criminal Terminations for 1974 
 DS6: Criminal Terminations for 1975 
 DS7: Criminal Terminations for 1976 
 DS8: Criminal Terminations for 1977 
 DS9: Criminal Terminations for 1978 
 DS10: Criminal Terminations for 1979 
 DS11: Criminal Terminations, 1980 
 DS12: Criminal Terminations, 1981 
 DS13: Criminal Terminations, 1982 
 DS14: Criminal Terminations, 1983 
 DS15: Appellate Terminations for 1971 
 DS16: Appellate Terminations for 1972 
 DS17: Appellate Terminations for 1973 
 DS18: Appellate Terminations for 1974 
 DS19: Appellate Terminations for 1975 
 DS20: Appellate Terminations for 1976 
 DS21: Appellate Terminations for 1977 
 DS22: Appellate Terminations for 1978 
 DS23: Appellate Terminations for 1979 
 DS24: Appellate Terminations for 1980 
 DS25: Appellate Terminations for 1981 
 DS26: Appellate Terminations for 1982 
 DS27: Appellate Terminations for 1983 
 DS28: Appellate Terminations for 1984 
 DS29: Criminal Terminations for 1984 
 DS30: Criminal Terminations for 1985 
 DS31: Criminal Terminations for 1986 
 DS32: Criminal Terminations for 1987 
 DS33: Criminal Pending, 1987 
 DS34: Appellate Terminations, 1985 
 DS35: Appellate Terminations, 1986 
 DS36: Appellate Terminations, 1987 
 DS37: Appellate Pending, 1987 
 DS38: Civil Terminations, 1970 
 DS39: Civil Terminations, 1971 
 DS40: Civil Terminations, 1972 
 DS41: Civil Terminations, 1973 
 DS42: Civil Terminations, 1974 
 DS43: Civil Terminations, 1975 
 DS44: Civil Terminations, 1976 
 DS45: Civil Terminations, 1977 
 DS46: Civil Terminations, 1978 
 DS47: Civil Terminations, 1979 
 DS48: Civil Terminations, 1980 
 DS49: Civil Terminations, 1981 
 DS50: Civil Terminations, 1982 
 DS51: Civil Terminations, 1983 
 DS52: Civil Terminations, 1984 
 DS53: Civil Terminations, 1985 
 DS54: Civil Terminations, 1986 
 DS55: Civil Terminations, 1987 
 DS56: Civil Pending, 1987 
 DS58: Criminal Terminations, 1988 
 DS59: Criminal Terminations, 1989 
 DS60: Criminal Pending, 1989 
 DS61: Appellate Terminations, 1988 
 DS62: Appellate Terminations, 1989 
 DS63: Appellate Pending, 1989 
 DS64: Civil Terminations, 1988 
 DS65: Civil Terminations, 1989 
 DS66: Civil Pending, 1989 
 DS67: Criminal Terminations, 1990 
 DS68: Criminal Terminations, 1991 
 DS69: Criminal Pending, 1991 
 DS70: Appellate Terminations, 1990 
 DS71: Appellate Terminations, 1991 
 DS72: Appellate Pending, 1991 
 DS73: Civil Terminations, 1990 
 DS74: Civil Terminations, 1991 
 DS75: Civil Pending, 1991 
 DS76: Criminal Terminations, 1992 
 DS77: Criminal Terminations, 1993 
 DS78: Criminal Terminations, 1994 
 DS79: Criminal Terminations, 1995 
 DS80: Criminal Pending, 1995 
 DS81: Criminal (Fugitive) Pending, 1995 
 DS82: Appellate Terminations, 1992 
 DS83: Appellate Terminations, 1993 
 DS84: Appellate Terminations, 1994 
 DS85: Appellate Pending, 1994 
 DS86: Civil Terminations, 1992 
 DS87: Civil Terminations, 1993 
 DS88: Civil Terminations, 1994 
 DS89: Civil Pending, 1994 
 DS96: Appellate Terminations, 1995 
 DS97: Appellate Pending, 1995 
 DS98: Civil Terminations, 1995 
 DS99: Civil Pending, 1995 
 DS100: Appellate Terminations, 1996 
 DS101: Appellate Terminations, 1997 
 DS102: Appellate Pending, 1997 
 DS103: Civil Terminations, 1996 
 DS104: Civil Terminations, 1997 
 DS105: Civil Pending, 1997 
 DS107: Appellate Terminations, 2000 
 DS108: Appellate Pending, 2000 
 DS109: Criminal Data, 1996 
 DS110: Criminal Data, 1997 
 DS111: Criminal Data, 1998 
 DS112: Criminal Data, 1999 
 DS113: Criminal Data, 2000 
 DS115: Civil Terminations, 1998 
 DS116: Civil Terminations, 1999 
 DS117: Civil Terminations, 2000 
 DS118: Civil Pending, 2000 
 DS119: Appellate Terminations, 1998 
 DS120: Appellate Terminations, 1999 
 DS121: Appellate Pending, 1999
description: Federal Court Cases: Integrated Database Series
description: (1) Several, but not all, of these record counts include a final blank record. Researchers may want to detect this occurrence and eliminate this record before analysis. (2) In July 1984, a major change in the recording and disposition of an appeal occurred, and several data fields dealing with disposition were restructured or replaced. The new structure more clearly delineates mutually exclusive dispositions. Researchers must exercise care in using these fields for comparisons. (3) In 1992, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts changed the reporting period for statistical data. Up to 1992, the reporting period, or "statistical year," went from July through June (e.g., statistical year 1990 covered the period July 1989 through June 1990). In 1992, the statistical reporting period was changed to conform to the federal government's standard fiscal year, October through September (e.g., fiscal year 1993 covered the period October 1992 through September 1993). The 1970-1991 files, Parts 1-56 and 58-75, conform to the old statistical year (SY70-SY91). The 1992 data files, Parts 82 and 86, cover a 15-month time span (July 1991 through September 1992) to accommodate this conversion period. Subsequent files conform to the new fiscal year (October through September). (4) In fiscal year 1993, there was a change in the policy regarding the counting of defendants who had been fugitive for more than one year. Instead of remaining in the "Pending" file for that year, these cases are put into a separate "Criminal (Fugitive) Pending" file after the year has expired. This change is reflected beginning with the 1995 data. (5) Undocumented codes are present in the data. (6) The part numbers are not consecutive. (7) It is recommended by the principal investigators that only the most recent "Pending" files be used in analysis. (8) Starting in 1996, there are no longer separate criminal terminations and criminal pending data files. These two files were combined into one file called "Criminal Data." (9) In 2005 additional confidentiality measures were applied to many of the data files. Seventy-six data files had identifying information removed from the public use files. There are restricted use files which contain the data removed in 2005. A Data Transfer Agreement Form must be submitted to NACJD to obtain these data.
description: All federal court cases, 1970-2000.