In May, the University of Chicago Law School released a report assessing every state Supreme Court in the nation. The researchers used three metrics to rate each court's job performance: productivity (how many cases they hear), national influence (how often their opinions are cited by other courts), and judicial independence (how often a judge of one party will agree with a judge of the opposite party). The researchers concede that overall performance is a hard thing to measure:
The objective measures that we use capture some aspects of judicial quality but not all of it. It would be a mistake to believe that small differences in measured outcomes reflect significant differences in quality. But where the differences are large, it is likely that the lower-ranked judges or courts are inferior, at least unless a good reason can be given to explain the difference.
Illinois' high court fared quite well by the U of C standards. Out of the 52 state Supreme Courts (Texas and Oklahoma have two each), ours was found to be the 15th most productive, the 14th most referenced by other courts, and it ranked 10th in its ability to divorce decisions from current political trends.
Some other findings? New Mexico was deemed the least productive, the Oklahoma Criminal Court the least influential, and Michigan the least independent. While Georgia has the most prolific court, California has the most influential and Rhode Island the most independent.
(H/T Michigan Messenger)
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