Unit of Count: Death Penalty

 

The notice of appeal, petition for review, or application for writ begins a Death Penalty case for both intermediate appellate courts and courts of last resort.  Count the filing of the notice/petition/application with the clerk of court as the beginning of a death penalty case.  The Grand Total Dispositions figure should be an aggregate count of the total number of cases in that category resolved by the court during the reporting period. Report the number of death penalty case filings and dispositions according to the subject matter at issue as defined in the Appellate Case Type Definitions.

 

The Manner of Disposition matrix provides a means to report the manner in which appellate court death penalty cases were resolved.

 

Note that in the Manner of Disposition matrix, the subcategories for the major case categories have been aggregated, for ease of reporting.  For example, while in the Death Penalty–Caseload Summary matrix there are four subcategories of Direct Appeal cases, in the Death Penalty–Manner of Disposition matrix there is a single row labeled Resolved Death Penalty Direct Appeal, which reports on all the death penalty appeal cases, and thus corresponds to the TOTAL Death Penalty Appeals row in the Death Penalty–Caseload Summary matrix.

 

Similarly, while there are two subcategories of writs under the Death Penalty Post-Conviction Activity heading in the Death Penalty–Caseload Summary matrix, there is only a single row labeled Resolved Death Penalty Writ in the Death Penalty–Manner of Disposition matrix.

 

            Notes:

 

Consolidated case: This is a case in which two or more notices/petitions/applications are combined and heard as one case.  In reporting appellate court dispositions, all the cases except the one into which the cases were consolidated should be reported as resolved at the time of consolidation, and the resolution(s) should be reported under Other Resolution.  When the consolidated case has been decided, the resolution should be reported under the appropriate manner of resolution category.

 

Terminated or Inactive case: Cases that are treated as terminated for statistical purposes, but have not been removed from the jurisdiction of the court, should be reported under Other Resolution.  Such cases include those that are transferred to an inactive status.  If the case is reactivated, report it as a new case, classified by the subject matter of the case as defined in the Appellate Case Type Definitions.