What are the odds of a successful appeal?
The number of successful appeals is low. Appellate courts give the trial court great leeway in conducting trials. The law does not guarantee perfect trials, therefore appeals courts will only overturn verdicts which contain clear, serious errors of law. Because of the leeway appeals courts give trial verdicts, petitioners carry an even greater burden in proving that errors of law were serious and not harmless. If an appellate court can find any reasonable argument that the error wouldn’t have changed the verdict (and is therefore “harmless”), it will refuse to overturn the verdict. There are, of course, numerous cases where serious errors were made and appeals courts will overturn those verdicts. Particularly serious are charges that the trial court denied rights guaranteed by the constitution, such as due process and equal protection rights.
