There’s been a great deal written about how much confidence voters have in their legislatures and executive branches and the skill with which they think they perform their jobs.  There’s been less in the general press about public confidence in the courts. But the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) has been tracking the sentiments of registered voters on this issue for over a decade, and the most recent results are fascinating.  

In the second week of December 2024, this State of State Courts annual survey asked 1,000 registered voters if they had confidence in state courts and found that 63% of respondents said they did.  That’s better than public opinion about state legislatures (59%), governors (58%) and the US Supreme Court (54%).

While results from recent annual surveys show confidence in state courts dropped from 65% in 2019 to a low of 60% in 2022, the numbers have been gradually improving for each of the last two years. 

Disaggregating the 2024 results shows substantial differences based on gender. Some 69% of men reported having confidence in state courts compared with 58% of women. The survey also revealed racial differences with 65% of white respondents saying they were confident compared with 58% of those who are listed in the results as “non-white.” 

When respondents were asked whether to rate the jobs done by their courts, 54% rated their courts as “good or excellent.” But there was reasonably large variation in the answers provided by democrats, republicans and independents.  In the 2024 survey, 69% of individuals who identified themselves as republicans said their state courts were good or excellent compared with 48% of democrats and 60% of independents.

The survey may be most useful for the state courts themselves by signaling spots where specific improvements are needed. For example, only 47% agreed with the statement that state courts “Provide equal justice to all.” When asked about whether “innovative” described state courts well, only 32% said it did. 

The ability of courts to provide information and assistance “to enable self-representation” also received a negative response with only 27% of respondents saying they shared the view that courts did this. This is an important issue due to a shortages of lawyers, the expense of hiring representation and huge ongoing problems with maintaining an accessible supply of public defenders.

Other messages that come from the 2024 survey:

• 60% agreed with the idea of allowing trained legal professionals “without a law degree to handle straightforward legal issues”, while 26% were more inclined to agree that this practice “could lead to mistakes and inadequate representation.”

• In general, there was strong support for courts undertaking more use of artificial intelligence to increase efficiency. The survey found 64% agreed with the idea of using chatbots to answer frequently asked questions; 64% could see the use of AI in translating documents into other languages and 71% saw the potential of AI for breaking down legal jargon.

• In the response to questions about artificial intelligence, there were also differences based on gender, education level, and court experience, with men favoring AI more than women (77% vs. 66%) and college educated favoring more than non-college educated (74% vs. 69%). For individuals with court experience of all kinds listed (traffic court, lawsuits, criminal cases, and instances of self-representation), support for the use of AI in the courts was higher among individuals who had been to court, than for those who hadn’t.

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