Related to David's post, Chief Justice Roberts gave a speech recently in which he argued that the reasons for the Supreme Court's shrinking docket were: 1) fewer pieces of significant legislation from Congress; 2) more uniform statutory interpretation in the lower courts; and 3) the ability of lower courts to find relevant cases online. (Hat tip to the Brennan Center's Fair Courts Elert. A link to the AP article on the speech is here.)
Empirical analysis anyone?
A saw this claim by CJ Roberts. One relevant piece of evidence is the total number of cert petitions. Have they hit a plateau in recent years? bh.
Posted by: William Henderson | 09 May 2007 at 08:51 PM
I recently published a paper [34 Fla. St. U. L. Rev. 161 (2006)], motivated by proposals to impose term limits for Supreme Court Justices, that examines the claim that the decline in the number of cases accepted for review and the number of opinions issued per term by the Court is partially attributable to the increased longevity and terms of service of the Justices. On the whole, I did not find clear support for the claim.
Posted by: Joshua C. Teitelbaum | 09 May 2007 at 11:54 AM