SYRACUSE — Researchers at Syracuse University (SU) have developed a data tool that provides information on the performance of more than 900 federal district-court judges. The data tool, developed by SU’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) officially launched Oct. 14. TRAC announced the advancement in a news release distributed that same day. With the new […]
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SYRACUSE — Researchers at Syracuse University (SU) have developed a data tool that provides information on the performance of more than 900 federal district-court judges.
The data tool, developed by SU’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) officially launched Oct. 14.
TRAC announced the advancement in a news release distributed that same day.
With the new tool, the public can learn which judges handle the most civil-court cases, and how long it takes for judges to close those cases, says Gregory Munno, assistant research professor for TRAC.
“What’s the composition of those cases? How long, on average, does it take them to close each type of case? How many cases have they closed? How does that compare to other judges in the country?” he added.
Munno spoke with the Business Journal News Network on Oct. 17.
Users can analyze caseload and time-to-closure data by type of case, such as civil rights, product liability, and immigration.
The custom-built data application then automatically compares the findings for each judge to other judges in the same district and to the nation as whole.
That same day, TRAC released a report with findings mined from the new tool.
The report found caseloads have jumped 28 percent in the past two decades while the number of federal judges has increased only 4 percent.
It also found the time from when a civil matter is filed to when it is scheduled for trial has grown by 63 percent in the last 20 years.
In addition, the report found there’s surprising variation in the caseloads of individual judges and for districts as a whole, and not always in ways that one might expect. For example, the rural Eastern District of Texas, which centers on the small city of Tyler, is the busiest district court per full-time judge in the country.
Judge Information Center
SU is adding the new data on civil matters to TRAC’s existing Judge Information Center, which includes sentencing data for all federal criminal cases, along with tools to explore the practices of administrative immigration-court judges.
“Over and over again, history has shown us that a fair judiciary is essential for the maintenance of a functioning democracy,” David Burnham, an associate research professor at the Newhouse School of Syracuse University and TRAC’s co-director, said in the news release. “The Judge Information Center is dedicated to the belief that to assure this goal in the years ahead that the collection of independent, comprehensive, and accurate information about the working of the court system be expanded.”
Lawyers, law schools, judges, public-interest groups, and others have indicated “considerable interest” since the launch of the Judge Information Center’s criminal and immigration data service in 2012, according to the TRAC news release.
Even the U.S. Justice Department subscribes, the SU organization said.
The data behind the new tool comes from several sources, mixing publically available data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts with data TRAC has mined from the electronic court-filing system known as PACER, as well as data that TRAC obtained from the Justice Department through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests and subsequent lawsuits.
PACER, a service of the Federal Judiciary, is short for Public Access to Court Electronic Records.
“The work it takes to compile, structure, and verify millions of records from disparate sources is considerable,” Susan Long, TRAC co-director and an associate professor at the SU’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management, said in the same news release. “We believe the results are worth it, with findings that provide researchers, journalists and lawyers unique insights into the least examined branch of government.”
Anyone with an Internet connection can access the data tool’s top-level statistics. Drill-down reports on each judge are available by subscription.
TRAC employs a sliding scale based on an organization’s nonprofit status and size to make its data tools accessible.
Burnham and Long founded TRAC 25 years ago. It is one of the “oldest independent organizations covering federal enforcement and federal judges,” according to the news release.
In addition to support from Syracuse University, foundations such as Carnegie, Ford, Knight, MacArthur, Rockefeller, and the CS Fund have also provided funding for TRAC, the school said.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
