At last night’s NJSBA Appellate Practice Committee meeting, we heard a report on Appellate Division statistics for the preceding court year (the meeting was to have occurred in the fall but was postponed due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control). In civil appeals heard by a three-judge panel, 68% of decisions below were affirmed, while two-judge panels affirmed in 72% of civil cases. The affirmance rates for criminal appeals were 76% for three-judge cases and 86% for two-judge cases.
Despite a heavy caseload, the Appellate Division continues to issue many decisions fairly quickly. The median time from the filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case to the date of decision was 13 months, 8 days (criminal appeals took slightly longer, with a median of 14 months, 21 days). The median time from the date of oral argument or submission without argument was one month, 12 days in civil cases and one month, 13 days in criminal cases.
One other statistic warrants mention. There was a small but noticeable increase in the number of cases that the Appellate Division disposed of on summary disposition sua sponte. The court is trying to weed out cases that can be decided summarily in order to avoid unnecessary additional briefing, oral argument, and expenditure of judicial resources. There were still not many such cases, but on a percentage basis the increase in this regard was significant.