The Rhode Island Supreme Court is hard at work in term ’19-’20 with 30 opinions issued through January. With term ’18-’19 in the books, it’s a good time to review the types of cases the Supreme Court decided last term, along with the division of labor of the individual Justices, and how criminal defendants and pro se litigants fared. Here’s the ’18-’19 term in review (click here for the ’17-’18 term in review).
Overall, the Supreme Court published 98 full opinions during term ’18-’19. This is in line with the last few terms, which saw 94 opinions (’17’-’18 term), 97 opinions (’16-’17 term), 98 opinions (’15-’16 term), and 89 opinions (’14-’15 term). The Supreme Court decides when it hears cases, so it is not surprising that the overall case load has remained remarkably constant over the years.
The split between civil and criminal for the 98 opinions in term ’18-’19 is roughly two-thirds to one-third: the Supreme Court issued 63 full opinions in civil cases and 35 full opinions in criminal cases (the definition of criminal cases includes proceedings like post-conviction reviews, which are technically civil but are really criminal law cases). This is very similar to prior years.
Overall, in term ’18-’19, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court in 74 cases, affirmed in part and vacated in part in 8 cases, and vacated the lower court ruling 16 times.
How did civil litigants fare? Overall, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court in 45 cases, affirmed in part and vacated in part in 7 cases, and vacated the lower court’s decision in 11 cases. This translates into the person who appealed (usually the appellant or petitioner) achieving partial or total success in roughly 29% of civil cases before the Supreme Court.
Criminal defendants did not fare as well. Of the 35 criminal opinions, the Supreme Court issued rulings in favor of the State in 32 cases and decided 3 cases in favor of the criminal defendant. Criminal defendants achieved some level of success in 9% of criminal cases, much lower than the 29% success rate in civil cases.
Pro Se litigants (defined for this article as self-represented parties who did not retain attorneys or who are not attorneys themselves) did about the same as criminal defendants. Combining the Supreme Court’s full opinions with the shorter orders for cases that it decides summarily (access the full opinions here and the summary orders here), the Supreme Court reviewed 13 cases involving pro se parties where only one side was pro se. For this pro se group, 1 pro se party achieved partial success in one case; in the other 12 cases, the Supreme Court ruled for the party that had legal representation. Pro Se litigants achieved success in 8% of cases for term ’18-’19, about the same as criminal defendants.
Here’s a look at the division of labor for each Justice during the ’18-’19 term. 82 cases were unanimous and 16 had some form of disagreement between the Justices. In most instances, each Justice joined the majority opinion. (Also, note that the majority opinions listed below add up to 97, not 98, because the Supreme Court issued one unsigned per curiam opinion in In re Brown).
Chief Justice Suttell
- Wrote Majority Opinion – 21 times (same as ’17-’18)
- Dissented in Full or in Part and wrote Concurring or Dissenting Opinion – 4 times (1 more than ’17-’18)
- Joined another Justice who wrote a Dissent – 1 time (1 fewer than ’17-’18)
Justice Goldberg
- Wrote Majority Opinion – 21 times (3 more than ’17-’18)
- Dissented in Full or in Part and wrote Concurring or Dissenting Opinion – 4 times (1 more than ’17-’18)
- Joined another Justice who wrote a Dissent – 1 time (same as ’17-’18)
Justice Flaherty
- Wrote Majority Opinion – 20 times (3 more than ’17-’18)
- Dissented in Full or in Part and wrote Concurring or Dissenting Opinion – 2 times (3 fewer than ’17-’18)
- Joined another Justice who wrote a Dissent – 1 time (same as ’17-’18)
Justice Indeglia
- Wrote Majority Opinion – 20 times (2 fewer than ’17-’18)
- Dissented in Full or in Part and wrote Concurring or Dissenting Opinion – 3 times (same as ’17-’18)
- Joined another Justice who wrote a Dissent – 1 time (1 more than ’17-’18)
Justice Robinson
- Wrote Majority Opinion – 15 times (same as ’17-’18)
- Dissented in Full or in Part and wrote Concurring or Dissenting Opinion – 7 times (1 fewer than ’17-’18)
- Joined another Justice who wrote a Dissent – 1 time (1 fewer than ’17-’18)
RICourtBlog has often pondered if Justice Robinson is the current Great Dissenter. The answer is still yes. Justice Robinson dissented or wrote separately in 8 cases for the ’18-’19 term. The next closest Justice did this 5 times. Justice Robinson has consistently dissented at a higher rate than the other Justices over the years, and he usually does it with a delightful dialectic of alliterative dialects, sometimes in multiple languages.