One bit of conventional wisdom that’s frequently heard about appellate review in California is that if a Court of Appeal opinion isn’t published, seeking Supreme Court review is a hopeless task. This week, we’re looking at the data to see if that’s true – civil cases in this post, criminal in the next.
The short answer is – it isn’t. In 1990, one-third of the Court’s civil cases were unpublished below. That dropped to 15% in 1991 but was between 25 and 45% from 1992 to 2005. In 2006, the unpublished share was 22.64%, and in 2007 it dropped a bit to 21.43%. In 2008, it dropped to its lowest level: 12.5%. But then it headed upwards again. The unpublished share was 20.45% in 2009, 28.57% in 2010, 30.3% in 2011 and 31.25% in 2013. It’s been down just a bit since then, but still significant: 17.39% (2014), 12.5% (2015), 19.44% (2016), 21.43% (2017), 21.21% (2018), 29.27% (2019) and 28.57% so far this year.
