We begin by extending our congratulations to Heather Davis who assumed the position of Chief Clerk and Legal Counsel of the court last November upon the retirement of Lisa LeCours after "nearly 25 years of invaluable service" to the court. Foreword to the 2024 Annual Report, ii.

The court's caseload continues to increase. In 2024, the court decided 120 appeals (75 civil and 45 criminal), almost 50% more than the total of only 88 appeals decided in 2023.

This is in keeping with Chief Judge Wilson's expressed hope "that we will have the opportunity to decide even more appeals" and "move the court toward its historically normal case load, which would allow us to honor our responsibility to resolve all issues of statewide importance that require our attention." 2023 Annual Report, Foreword.

The number of the court's dispositions is heading toward the average total dispositions during the 22-year tenure of Chief Judges Kaye (220) and Lippman (233). Newman & Pelzer, Declining Dispositions of the Court of Appeals, 85.4 Albany L. Rev. [2022].

Of the 75 civil appeals decided by the court in 2024, the jurisdictional predicate for 43 (57%) was permission of the Court of Appeals, 14 (19%) permission of the Appellate Division, 5 (7%) by dissents at the Appellate Division, 9 (12%) a constitutional question was involved (8 of the 9 resulted in affirmances with only 1reversal).

The number of civil appeals sent to the Court of Appeals by the Appellate Division last year (14) seems quite low, considering the Chief Judge's invitation and that the Appellate Division disposed of 6700 appeals in 2024, of which 1020 were reversals and 860 modifications of the lower court's judgments. 2024 Annual Report, N.Y.S. Unified Court System, p. 57.

We would expect to find more than 14 questions of law deserving of Court of Appeals review among the many reversals.

"Whenever it appears to the Supreme Court of the United States, any United States Court of Appeals, or a court of last resort of any other state that determinative questions of New York law are involved in a case pending before that court for which no controlling precedent of the Court of Appeals exists, the court may certify the dispositive questions of law to the Court of Appeals." Rule 500.27. The court answered 3 certified questions in 2024; it accepted two more and declined to accept one. Annual Report, p.7.

Criminal leave applications are assigned to an individual judge, with an average of 162 applications assigned to each judge. Such applications were disposed of relatively quickly, taking on average 88 days from assignment to the judge to disposition. Annual Report, p. 7.

Of the 45 criminal appeals decided, where leave to appeal was granted by an individual judge or justice, 31 were by permission of a Court of Appeals judge, while 14 were by permission of an Appellate Division justice. Appx. 5. The disposition of criminal appeals was almost evenly divided between an affirmance (51%) and reversal (47%) plus modification (2%).

The number of criminal leave applications decided continues to decline from 1824 in 2020 to 1139 in 2024. Appx. 7. Only 23 of the 1139 criminal leave applications were granted (2%), 1021 were denied and 94 dismissed. Appx. 7.

Those appellants whose cases were decided had a much higher rate of success/reversal (47%) than appellants in civil appeals (32.5%). Appx. 3. Only one of the 15 People's applications for leave to appeal was granted, 12 were dismissed and 2 withdrawn. Appx. 7.

The Court of Appeals continues to be remarkably prompt in its disposition of appeals following oral argument or submission; for normal course appeals (after full briefing and oral argument), the average time was 38 days, for all appeals the average was 36 days.

The time from notice of appeal to decision for normal course appeals is 15.3 months, while for all appeals, including those decided pursuant to the Rule 500.11 SSM procedure, those dismissed pursuant to Rule 500.10 SSD inquiries, and those dismissed pursuant to Rule 500.16 (a) for failure to perfect, the average was 5 months, the same as in 2023. Annual Report, p. 5.

The Sua Sponte Merits (SSM) procedure allows the court to decide appeals on written letter submissions, and the briefs and record of the intermediate appellate court, without oral argument. Such cases generally involve narrow issues of law or issues decided by a recent appeal. Annual Report, p. 5.

As for writings during 2024, 84 of the 120 appeals were decided by a signed majority opinion, 22 by memoranda, 1 by per curiam and 13 by a decision list entry; there were 48 dissenting opinions and 18 concurring opinions. Annual Report, p. 6.

The court also decided 823 motions seeking various forms of relief; 624 were motions for leave to appeal, of which 28 were granted, 463 denied and 129 dismissed. Others included motions for assignment of counsel, financial relief, amicus curiae relief and for a stay. Appx. 6.

Motions for reargument of an appeal continue to be made despite the fact that there is almost no chance that such a motion will be granted. In the last 25 years, of the many hundreds of such motions made, only 2 were granted (one in 2007 and another in 2012). Yet "hope springs eternal." Alexander Pope.

In addition to deciding appeals and motions, the court "has exclusive jurisdiction to review determinations of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct and to suspend a judge with or without pay, when the Commission has determined that removal is the appropriate sanction, or while the judge is charged in this state with a crime punishable as a felony."

Annual Report, p. 7. In 2024, one judge was suspended based on a recommendation that he be removed from office and another after being charged with a felony in New York. The court removed 5 judges who failed to seek review of the Commission's determination recommending removal. Annual Report, p. 7.

The Annual Report contains a "Year in Review: Decisions" section with a summary of significant decisions in 2024.

Reprinted with permission from New York Law Journal, © ALM Media Properties LLC. All rights reserved.