Litigation News

Legal Decisions, Legislation & Nature Influence Federal Court

In fiscal year 2005, the workload of the federal Judiciary was affected in part by Supreme Court decisions, new legislation, and a force of nature. Filings of appeals and bankruptcy petitions reached record highs, while civil and criminal filings in the U.S. district courts declined.

Caseload statistics of the federal courts are compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Statistics for FY 2005 and previous years can be found on the Judiciary's website in the 2005 Judicial Business of the United States Courts at uscourts.gov/judbususc/judbus.html.

U.S. Courts of Appeals

For the tenth consecutive record-breaking year, filings in the 12 regional courts of appeals rose 9 percent to an all-time high of 68,473. The increase for FY 2005 was due to upswings in criminal appeals, administrative agency appeals, original proceedings, and prisoner petitions. The overall increase might have been greater if the Fifth Circuit had not been affected by Hurricane Katrina. Only 92 appeals were filed in the Fifth Circuit in the month of September 2005; the normal monthly caseload in that circuit is between 700 and 1,000 filings.

Criminal appeals jumped 28 percent in FY 2005 to 16,060, with growth in cases related to nearly all types of crimes. The most significant increases were in appeals related to drug offenses (up 31 percent to 6,099); immigration (up 55 percent to 2,896); firearms and explosives (up 23 percent to 2,505); and property (up 15 percent to 1,967).

Administrative agency appeals grew 12 percent to 13,713, primarily due to challenges to Bureau of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decisions, which increased 14 percent to 12,349. In FY 2005, most BIA appeals were filed in the Ninth Circuit (53 percent) and the Second Circuit (21 percent).

Original proceedings climbed 23 percent to 5,017 as state and federal prisoners filed 3,617 second or successive motions for permission to file habeas corpus petitions (up 42 percent) following the Supreme Court's decisions in Blakely v. Washington and U.S. v. Booker.

Civil appeals remained relatively stable, declining 1 percent to 32,818. A 3 percent rise in prisoner petitions (up 473 petitions) was more than offset by a 4 percent reduction in other civil appeals. Appeals of federal civil cases grew 12 percent to 9,229 primarily because of a 41 percent jump to 3,709 in motions to vacate sentence filed by federal prisoners in response to the Booker decision. Prisoner civil rights cases grew 6 percent to 3,083 as a result of increased filings by both federal and state prisoners. Bankruptcy appeals totaled 865 (up 3 appeals.)

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