U.S. Judiciary: Chief Justice John Roberts Issues 2012 Year-End Report

John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States, issued a 2012 year-end report on the judiciary.

The Chief Justice essentially presents the judiciary as a branch that is acting responsibly with its budget but cannot reduce its budget further without affecting the quality of judicial services.

Considering the size of the judiciary budget (fiscal year 2012–$6.97 billion appropriations request out of a total U.S. budget of $3.7 trillion), it appears that the branch is taking appropriate steps. The Chief Justice listed three main areas that the judiciary is focusing on: rent, personnel, and information technology. In the Chief Justice’s discussion, there is a discussion of the exploration of sharing administrative services within a judicial district. Because some judicial districts span over a large georgraphical area, I would be interested in receiving a bit more detail as to how this idea will be placed into practice.

[Note 1: Judicial pay is the same as for 2010. See Executive Order ____, schedule 7 (http://www.opm.gov/oca/compmemo/2012/2013PAY_Attach.pdf).]

In the appendix to the report, the Chief Justice provides and explanation of the workload of the judiciary. I will focus on the Supreme Court’s workload.

	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Filings	8521	8857	8241	7738	8159	7857	7713
In forma pauperis	6846	7132	6627	6142	6576	6299	6160
Paid docket	1671	1723	1614	1596	1583	1558	1553
Cases:
argued	87	78	75	87	82	86	79
disposed	82	74	72	83	77	83	73
signed opinions	69	67	67	74	73	75	83

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