During the Supreme Court’s 2017 Term, the number of paid (booklet format) cases increased 11% while the number of in forma pauperis (IFP) filings decreased 3%.*
2017 Term
6,315 total filings
4,595 IFP filings
1,720 paid filings
2016 Term
6,305 total filings
4,755 IFP filings
1,550 paid filings
To place these numbers in perspective, there were 49,276 filings in the Federal Courts of Appeals and 282,936 filings in the Federal District courts during the same period.
During the 2017 Term, 69 cases were argued and 63 were disposed of by opinion or order.
Make-Up of the Merits Docket**
- 86% were paid cases, 9% IFP petitions, and 4% original action proceedings
- 65% civil cases, 21% criminal cases, 10% habeas corpus cases, and 4% original action proceedings
- 79% of petitions arose out of the U.S. Court of Appeals, 11% from state cases, 6% three-judge district courts, and 4% original action proceedings
Merits Cases by Vote Split
- 9-0 vote
28 cases (39%)
Includes Montana v. Wyoming, Texas v. New Mexico, and Byrd v. U.S.
- 8-1 vote
6 cases (8%)
Includes Collins v. Virginia and Lozman v. Riviera Beach
- 7-2 vote
11 cases (15%)
Includes Masterpiece v. Co. Comm’n, Murphy v. NCAA, and Ortiz v. U.S.
- 6-3 vote
7 cases (10%)
Includes McCoy v. Louisiana and Patchak v. Zinke
- 5-4 vote
19 cases (26%)
Includes Trump v. Hawaii, Jesner v. Arab Bank, South Dakota v. Wayfair, and Janus v. Am. Fed.
Justice Agreement – Highs and Lows
Highest: Ginsburg – Sotomayor agree in 95.8% of cases
Lowest: Alito – Sotomayor agree in only 49.3% of cases
Average Number of Questions Per Argument
Sotomayor – 24.3
Breyer – 21.2
Roberts – 16.0
Gorsuch – 15.4
Kagan – 14.7
Alito – 12.7
Ginsburg – 10.2
Kennedy – 9.0
Thomas – 0.0
Oral Advocate Tidbits
- Most popular law schools represented: Harvard (23 advocates) and Yale (19 advocates)
- Most frequent advocate: Paul D. Clement (6 appearances)
- Only 19 female advocates appeared during the 2017 Term (12%). By contrast, 33 female advocates appeared in the 2016 Term (21%)
* Figures from Chief Justice Roberts’ 2018 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, at https://www.supremecourt.gov/publicinfo/year-end/2018year-endreport.pdf
** The following figures were derived from the great work of Kedar Bhatia at SCOTUSblog. Kedar Bhatia, Final October Term 2017 Stat Pack and Key Takeaways, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2018, 9:00 AM), at http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/06/final-october-term-2017-stat-pack-and-key-takeaways/