COVID-19 and the U.S. District Courts: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

This report uses caseload data to examine case-processing trends in the United States district courts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two key conclusions emerge from our analysis. First, the data suggest that COVID-19 disrupted and delayed federal court operations in ways that could still be felt two years after the onset of the pandemic. Specifically, the median criminal defendant and the median civil case moved through the federal courts 44% and 7% slower during the second year of the pandemic compared to recent prepandemic years. Also, courts processed 27% fewer criminal defendants and 6% fewer civil cases during the first two years of the pandemic compared to the two-year period before the pandemic. The second key conclusion relates to backlog. As courts limited in-person activities and suspended trials at the onset the pandemic, it seemed likely that pending cases would accumulate and exacerbate backlogs on the federal docket. But the data show that this is not what happened. By the end of the second year of the pandemic, there were fewer pending criminal defendants and fewer pending civil cases on the federal docket than would have been expected based on prepandemic trends. An important reason is that fewer new cases came onto the federal docket during the pandemic. Compared to the two years prior to the pandemic, 29% fewer criminal defendants and 6% fewer civil cases were filed in the U.S. district courts during the first two yearsof the pandemic.