State Court Statistics Project

State Court Statistics Project

Analyzing the work of the state courts across the United States provides a measuring stick against which states can examine their caseload, identify burgeoning trends, and determine the impact of past and recent legislation. Utilizing this baseline data from each state, we can answer important questions. One such question is what determinations can be made from the data? Based on upon data examined and summarized from Washington, Indiana, Iowa, Texas, and Georgia, we can also determine possible trends and make conclusions from these data.

Washington is made up of five different types of courts. Each of these different branches works closely with each area. The highest level of the Washington court system is the Supreme Court, followed by the Court of Appeals. In the year of 2009 Washington’s Supreme Court had a grand total of incoming bases and qualifying footnotes of 1,561 and a grand total with outgoing cases at 1,040 (Court Statistics Project, 2012). Noticeably not all of the incoming cases are being carried out. However looked at the court of Appeals has an incoming grand total of 4,303 and outgoing grand total of 4,261 case loads. These numbers between the Supreme Court and the court of Appeals totals out to be 5,864 incoming cases and 5,301 outgoing cases (Court Statistics Project, 2012). The numbers above are based on the cases between the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals; this does not including the cases within the other courts around the state. The other courts that Washington has are the municipal courts which exist within every county and the district courts. The next level would be the Superior court and then followed up with these two higher courts.

The state of Indiana is comprised of 11 different types of court systems. The largest being the Supreme court where the type of cases that are heard there are felony appeals and death penalty cases just to name a few scenarios of what type of case can be expected to be heard there. You have the court of appeals in 5 districts that currently has 15 sitting judges and the tax court that only has one judge. Superior, Circuit, and Probate court are fairly large courts that seat over 210 judges between the three in over 190 divisions. Small claims and probate court are the smallest two courts in Indiana. At the small claims court you can expect to hear cases over money disputes no more than $6000.00 can be requested by the plaintiff. City court currently has 47 courts with a sitting judge assigned to each court. Small claims up to 3,000 are held here along with traffic violation cases and they all have jury trials. Town court has 28 judges assigned to the 28 different town courts that hear misdemeanor cases such as traffic violations.

Iowa judicial stystem is strucured by a 3 court system. The State Supreme Court makes up one system and consist of seven judges. The second system is the