State Court Organization Trends, United States, 1980-2011 (ICPSR 37196)

Version Date: Apr 22, 2019

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Principal Investigator(s):
National Center for State Courts; Conference of State Court Administrators

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37196.v1

Version V1

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Summary

This data collection provides detailed comparative information about the structure, policies, and procedures of state-wide trial and appellate court systems for the 50 states and the District of Columbia within the United States for the years 1980, 1987, 1993, 1998, 2004, and 2011. Information gathered includes: the number of courts and judges, judicial selection, governance of court systems (including judicial funding, administration, staffing, and procedures), jury qualifications and verdict rules, and processing and sentencing procedures of criminal cases. Data collection was carried out by the National Center for State Courts.

Citation

National Center for State Courts, and Conference of State Court Administrators. State Court Organization Trends, United States, 1980-2011  . Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2019-04-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37196.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

State

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1980 -- 2011

Date of Collection

1980 -- 2011

Data Collection Notes

  1. For related collections, please see: State Court Organization, 1998: [United States] (ICPSR 2854), State Court Organizations, 2004 [United States] (ICPSR 4575), and State Court Organization, United States, 2011 (ICPSR 37195)
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Study Design

Data for the 1980, 1987, 1993, 1998, 2004, and 2011 State Court Organization (SCO) reports were collected by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) with funding provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Data collections prior to 2011 were mail surveys to state court administrators in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The 2011 SCO collected information from this same set of state court administrators, but the 2011 collection was primarily web-based with paper surveys made available for respondents that preferred or needed a traditional response mode. A survey aimed at state court administrators was designed to collect information on court organization, administration, and operation. Separate surveys designed to collect descriptive information (e.g., budget and staffing) were sent to appellate courts and trial courts. While respondents provided most of the information to complete the survey, staff at NCSC also compiled information on specific laws, legal procedures, and legal practices that applied statewide.

Sample

This collection includes State Court Organization (SCO) data from 1980, 1987, 1993, 1998, 2004, and 2011 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It does not include information on Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories.

Time Method

Time Series: Discrete

Universe

Statewide appellate and trial courts in the 50 states and the District of Columbia

Unit(s) of Observation

State

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2019-04-22

Version History

2019-04-22 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.