Cutting Time Between Oral Arguments and Release of Opinions

Ryan Koopmans at On Brief posts about the Iowa Supreme Court's adoption of a term system that is modeled after the United States Supreme Court.  Under this system, the Iowa Supreme Court seeks to release every opinion on its docket for each term before the beginning of the next term.  This system has worked, with cases now being resolved in an average of 112 days after final submission (or 87 days, if one removes the notably complex cases from the equation).

Iowa is not the only state that has taken steps to cut time between oral arguments and the release of opinions.  California has notably done so with its 90-Day Rule.  This rule requires a decision on a submitted matter within 90 days of argument or final submission on that matter.  This rule affects judges at the trial level and at the appellate level.  On the appellate level, the complexity of submitted arguments requires judges to take special measures, as Benjamin Shatz notes in this short paper on the rule:

At the appellate level, the 90-day rule has an effect on the scheduling of oral arguments.  Ninety days may not be enough time to carefully analyze complicated legal issues, draft a well-reasoned opinion (especially one for publication), and obtain a majority of justices to sign the opinion.  As a result, California's appellate courts typically ensure timely compliance by entertaining oral argument only after they have a tentative decision.

Iowa Supreme Court's approach to reducing backlog is a lot less strict than California's approach, which cuts of pay for judges in the event that the judge fails to release an opinion by the deadline.  However, both states' approaches may raise concerns when it comes to the effectiveness of oral arguments.  Judges who are under a deadline to release an opinion may be pressured into forming an opinion on the case before the argument even occurs.  As Shatz notes, this seems to be the norm in California.

I would like to make clear that I did not think up this concern on my own.  Those who are interested in a full exposition of the situation and the concerns raised by California's rule should keep their eyes out for a forthcoming article by UCLA's Daniel Bussel.  I have not been able to find the paper on SSRN, but I know that it will eventually be released in the UCLA Law Review.