A recent opinion piece by Howard Bashman, "Adding Judicial Efficiency to the Appellate Conversation," published June 11 in The Legal, citing no statistics, claims that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is inefficient and does not work hard. The author claims that "sizeable delays" are "plaguing" the court's work; allocaturs and appeals proceed "at … a glacial pace" and suffer "chronic backlogs"; allocaturs "are routinely taking over a year to be decided"; the court lacks a "culture of judicial efficiency"; and the court "at some point … will need to bear down and do the hard work necessary" to address the issues he raises. The assertion that the court does not work hard is profoundly mistaken: I know this for a fact and the court's work product proves it. Moreover, the exclusive focus on the time of argument to disposition loses sight of the value of considered decisions, and the court's other responsibilities. Following my initial disappointment, it occurred to me that, in addition to explaining why the author's multiple criticisms are misguided, there might be some educational benefit in describing the reality of the court's business and function.
The claim that the court does not already work hard is not based upon the author's firsthand experience associated with the court or its rules committees and boards, which are staffed by volunteer lawyers whose invaluable assistance helps the court discharge some of its equally-important duties beyond deciding cases. The criticism arises from an anecdotal comparison of the court to Pennsylvania intermediate state and federal appellate courts. The comparison is inapt. The direct review courts typically sit in panels of three; the cases most often result in nonprecedential decisions involving error review; and the courts all benefit from the services of experienced senior judges. The Superior Court is allotted 15 judges, supplemented by senior judges (five at present); the Commonwealth Court has nine judges, supplemented by senior judges (four at present); the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is allotted 14 judges, and currently has 24 commissioned and senior judges available, a number supplemented with judges from other circuits sitting by designation. None of these tribunals are courts of last resort. The state intermediate courts have no capital appeal caseload, and the Third Circuit has a very limited one.
