State Court Statistics, 2005

This data collection provides comparable measures of state appellate and trial court caseloads by type of case for the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Court caseloads are tabulated according to generic reporting categories developed by the Court Statistics Project (CSP) Committee of the Conference of State Court Administrators. These categories describe differences in the unit of count and the point of count when compiling each court's caseload. Major areas of investigation include (1) case filings in state appellate and trial courts, (2) case processing and dispositions in state appellate and trial courts, and (3) appellate opinions. Within each of these areas of state government investigation, cases are separated by main case type, including civil cases, capital punishment cases, other criminal cases, domestic relations cases, juvenile cases, traffic violations cases, and administrative agency appeals.