Interesting data from the US Courts on federal criminal justice caseloads in FY 2017

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts yesterday released here is Annual Report on "Judicial Business 2017" providing lots of statistics on the work of the federal Judiciary for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2017. Here are some criminal justice-related items from data pages here and here that caught my eye:

This year, filings in the U.S. courts of appeals declined 16 percent to 50,506. Total filings in the U.S. district courts decreased 7 percent to 344,787 as civil case filings dropped 8 percent to 267,769, although filings for criminal defendants remained relatively stable at 77,018....

Filings in the regional courts of appeals, which rose 15 percent the previous year, dropped 16 percent to 50,506 in 2017. Filings by pro se litigants, which accounted for 50 percent of new cases, went down 20 percent. Civil appeals grew 1 percent. Criminal appeals fell 14 percent.

Filings for criminal defendants (including those transferred from other districts) remained stable, decreasing less than 1 percent to 77,018.

The biggest numeric decline was in filings for defendants charged with property offenses, which fell 6 percent to 10,115 filings and accounted for 13 percent of total criminal filings.  Filings for defendants charged with fraud, which constituted 9 percent of total filings and 71 percent of property offense filings, dropped 5 percent to 7,165.  Fraud filings related to identification documents and information, which are often associated with immigration crimes, decreased 16 percent to 639.

Drug crimes remained the offenses prosecuted most frequently in the U.S. district courts, constituting 32 percent of all defendant filings. Filings for defendants charged with crimes related to marijuana decreased 19 percent to 4,181.  Filings for non-marijuana defendants rose 4 percent to 20,175.  Filings related to the sale, distribution, or dispensing of illegal drugs decreased 17 percent to 2,249 for marijuana and rose 1 percent to 17,560 for all other drugs.

Criminal filings for defendants charged with immigration offenses fell 2 percent to 20,438 and accounted for 27 percent of criminal filings. This was the lowest total since 2007. Defendants charged with improper reentry by an alien decreased 3 percent to 16,554, and those charged with improper entry by an alien dropped 12 percent to 172.  Immigration filings in the five southwestern border districts declined 7 percent to 15,638 and constituted 77 percent of national immigration defendant filings, compared to 81 percent in 2016.  Filings fell 32 percent in the District of New Mexico, 16 percent in the Southern District of Texas, and 5 percent in the District of Arizona, but rose 51 percent in the Southern District of California and 6 percent in the Western District of Texas.

General offense defendants declined 5 percent and amounted to 2 percent of total criminal filings. Reductions also occurred in filings related to violent offenses (down 1 percent) and sex offenses (also down 1 percent); each of these categories constituted 4 percent or less of total criminal filings.

Filings for defendants prosecuted for firearms and explosives offenses rose 11 percent to 9,672 and represented 13 percent of total criminal filings. Filings involving justice system offenses, which increased 5 percent, constituted 1 percent of total criminal filings. Defendants charged with regulatory offenses grew 3 percent and accounted for 2 percent of total criminal filings. Traffic offense filings increased 2 percent to 2,292 and accounted for 3 percent of total criminal filings.

Because FY 2017 ending in Sept 2017 really represents a big transition year at the executive branch, it is way too early to draw too much from these data concerning the patterns of prosecution we might expect during the Trump years. But these data present an interesting baseline from which to look for notable patterns that might develop in the years ahead.