Last week, we began our review of a new question: is the conventional wisdom which posits that the Supreme Court only reviews final judgments (making a petition for review under any other circumstances a waste of time and money) really true? This week, we're reviewing the data for the years 2000 through 2009.

As shown in Table 1787, the percentage of the Court's civil cases which arose from final judgments was relatively stable, edging slightly up during the decade. In 2000, 65.79% of the Court's civil cases were final judgments. That fell to 58.82% in 2001 and (after a one-year blip up) 58.7% in 2003. By 2005, two-thirds of the civil cases arose from final judgments. Although that fell a bit in 2006 and a bit more in 2007, by 2008, 71.43% of the civil cases were from final judgments. In 2009, 73.17% were.

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Join us back here this coming week as we review the data across the past eleven years.

Image courtesy of Pixabay by bd_advtravlr (no changes).

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