Case weights are a measure of the judicial work required to process various types of cases. They provide a comparative indication of the processing time for the types of cases brought before the court. Previous case weights were based on judges' reports of the time they spent working on different types of cases. The case weights were derived from the average amount of time spent on each case type. The current study used a different method for determining case weights. Project staff modeled weights as the interaction between the events a judge must perform to process a case and the amount of time required to complete those events. The raw case weight for a case type was calculated by multiplying event frequency and judicial time for each type of case event and then summing the products across case-event types. The raw weight estimated the total time required, on average, to process a newly filed case of a given type. Project staff then transformed the raw weights into relative weights in order to preserve the relationship among case types. This report details the structure of the study, including the defining of the preliminary structure of the case-weight model, the calculation of trial time estimates from objective data, and the development of default values for case events. Other sections of the report describe work done at the circuit and national meetings, data extraction and data processing, computation of the case weights, and action on final case weights. 3 tables and 4 figures
District Court Case-Weighting Study 2003-2004, Final Report
NCJ Number
212426
Date Published
2005
Length
72 pages
Annotation
This report presents the results of the Federal Judicial Center's development of a new set of Federal district court case weights through the use of an event-based methodology.
Abstract