United States Courts of Appeals Database Phase 1, 1925-1988

The Appeals Court Database Project was designed to create an extensive dataset to facilitate the empirical analysis of the votes of judges and the decisions of the United States Courts of Appeals. The data in this collection comprise the first phase of this project. A random sample of cases from each circuit for each year between 1925-1988 was coded for the nature of the issues presented, the statutory, constitutional, and procedural bases of the decision, the votes of the judges, and the nature of the litigants. The variables are divided into four sections: basic case characteristics, participation, issues, and judges and votes. There is a separate data file (Part 2) containing the number of cases with published decisions for each circuit/year between 1925 and 1990. These data are necessary to weight the variables in the main data file (Part 1).