New dashboards improve access to state court structure data
January 29, 2025 -- This month, visitors to NCSC’s State Court Structures dashboards will find content improvements
and design enhancements to make accessing data about court structures easier.
Judges, court administrators, policy makers, researchers, and others can now easily access individual structures while also comparing states. Combining data visualization techniques from both Tableau and ArcGIS, these dashboards provide a user-friendly way to explore complex information about state court systems.
“Our dashboards are among the most requested resources we offer,” said Miriam Hamilton, an NCSC senior court research analyst and project lead. “These improvements help the court community by providing a tool to quickly compare or look up state-specific information about court types, case type jurisdiction, and routes of appeal. We re-designed the dashboard to allow updates as needed and to answer questions from various angles.”
Hamilton said the dashboards can help users answer questions such as:
- Which case categories does the general jurisdiction trial court in state X handle?
- Which states with a similar case volume and rural population to mine have limited jurisdiction courts that hear case type X?
- Which states have “district courts” classified as courts of general jurisdiction rather than limited jurisdiction?
New features
A significant enhancement to the dashboards is the updated heatmap functionality and selection options, along with the ability to filter states and courts by case type jurisdiction, offering a more effective and visually intuitive way to compare data for informed decision-making.
The interactive dashboards offer a comprehensive look at state court systems, enabling users to:
- Compare court structures based on factors such as population size and density, rurality, caseload size, and the presence of the death penalty.
- Analyze case type jurisdictions and pathways for appeals, based on standardized data of complex details to enable comparisons.
- Learn about the varying names of courts across states and their unique structures.
- Download a PDF version of each state's court structure for easy reference.
Understanding the nuances of court structures is essential for ensuring accurate comparisons and effectively using caseload statistics.
Explore the updated State Court Structures dashboards and gain valuable insights into the organization of state courts across the country.
Nominations open for Sandra Day O’Connor Award for the Advancement of Civics Education
NCSC is accepting nominations for the 2025 Sandra Day O’Connor Award for the Advancement of Civics Education. Named for the late associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the award recognizes an organization, court or individual(s) that has promoted, inspired, improved, or led an innovation or accomplishment in the field of civics education relating to the justice system.
Nominations must be made by a member of the Conference of Chief Justices, Conference of State Court Administrators or NCSC Board of Directors.
Nominations should be submitted via email to Molly Justice by midnight ET on Friday, March 14. Visit the NCSC website for more information about the award and nomination process.