DOI: 10.3886/icpsr30481.v1
title: State Court Statistics, 2008
title: Version 1

description: This data collection provides comparable measures of state appellate and trial court caseloads by type of case for the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Court caseloads are tabulated according to generic reporting categories developed by the Court Statistics Project (CSP) Committee of the Conference of State Court Administrators. These categories describe differences in the unit of count and the point of count when compiling each court's caseload. Major areas of investigation include (1) case filings in state appellate and trial courts, (2) case processing and dispositions in state appellate and trial courts, and (3) appellate opinions. The trial caseload consists of civil, domestic relations, criminal, juvenile, and traffic violation cases. The appellate caseload consists of appeal by right, appeal by permission, death penalty, and original proceeding/other appellate matter cases.
description: Information for the CSP's national caseload databases comes from published and unpublished sources supplied by state court administrators and appellate court clerks. Published data are typically taken from official state court annual reports and Web sites, so they take many forms and vary greatly in detail. Data from published sources are often supplemented by unpublished data received from the state courts in many formats, including internal management memoranda and computer-generated output. States also report and verify data electronically through spreadsheet templates provided by the Court Statistics Project. The CSP data collection effort to build a comprehensive statistical profile of the work of state appellate and trial courts nationally is underway throughout the year. Extensive telephone contacts and follow-up correspondence are used to collect missing data, confirm the accuracy of available data, and determine the legal jurisdiction of each court. Information is also collected on the number of judges per court or court system (from annual reports, offices of state court administrators, and appellate court clerks), the state populations (based on United States Bureau of the Census revised estimates), and special characteristics regarding subject matter jurisdiction and court structure.
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.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Appellate Court Data -- Four Major Categories 
 DS2: Appellate Court Data -- Appeal by Right Caseloads 
 DS3: Appellate Court Data -- Appeal by Permission Caseloads 
 DS4: Appellate Court Data -- Death Penalty Caseloads 
 DS5: Appellate Court Data -- Original Proceeding/Other Appellate Matter Caseloads 
 DS6: Trial Court Data -- Five Major Categories 
 DS7: Trial Court Data -- Civil Caseloads 
 DS8: Trial Court Data -- Domestic Relations Caseloads 
 DS9: Trial Court Data -- Criminal Caseloads 
 DS10: Trial Court Data -- Juvenile Caseloads 
 DS11: Trial Court Data -- Traffic Violations Caseloads
description: State Court Statistics Series
description: For additional information please see the Court Statistics Project Web site.
description: State appellate and trial court cases in the United States.