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

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: 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: All federal court cases, 1970-2000.
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.