U. S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. issued his 2025 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, striking a tone of judicial independence and shying away from current legal controversies.
In reporting on the workload of the courts, cases filed in the Supreme Court decreased nine percent compared with the prior year, from 4,223 filings in the 2023 Term to 3,856 in the 2024 Term. The number of cases filed in the U.S. courts of appeals increased five percent, rising from 39,788 in fiscal year (FY) 2024 to 41,824 in FY 2025. Civil cases filed in the U.S. district courts in FY 2025 increased four percent to 303,563 civil cases. The federal district courts docketed 79,029 criminal defendant filings (excluding transfers) in FY 2025, an increase of 13 percent from the prior year and the largest number of filings in a year since FY 2019, when the courts received 92,485 criminal defendant filings. The bankruptcy courts docketed 557,376 new filings in FY 2025, which was 11 percent more than the prior year, but 28 percent below the total for FY 2019.
Roberts ended his report by quoting President Calvin Coolidge’s comments during the United States’ Sesquicentennial that “Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken.”
This is the 21st report Chief Justice Roberts has issued since he was appointed chief justice in 2005. To access reports from previous years, visit the court’s website.