warm-up question: pretend you are a supreme court justice…what are three factors you would...
TRANSCRIPT
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Warm-up Question:
Pretend you are a Supreme Court Justice…What are three factors you would consider when deciding whether to hear a case?
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Granting Cert
The Supreme Court “is not and has never
been primarily concerned with the
correction of errors in lower court decisions.”
- Chief Justice Vinson
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CRITICAL QUESTION: Which types of cases
end up at the Supreme Court?
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Focus On:
•Case criteria
•Effects of case overload
•Economic status
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Petition for a Writ of Certiorari
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Huh?
•Petition: a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an authority •Writ of Certiorari: A written order issued by a higher court to a lower court to send up the record of a case for review.
Petition for a Writ of Certiorari
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CASE CRITERIA
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What does a Petition for Cert Contain?
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“Cert-worthy” Criteria
Conflicts in lower courts Intolerable Circuit Conflict
Important Question Multiple amicus briefs at cert stage Affects large number of people Special circumstance/Specific Question
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More Reasons to Deny Than to Grant!
A petition that raises too many questions (prefer focusing on one issue)
Bad vehicle for reaching this legal issue Case is deemed “frivolous” Involves a “Political Question” Can’t be hypothetical A better case “in the pipeline”
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CASE OVERLOAD
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How many cert petitions are considered?
6,142 IFP Petitions
1,596 paid Petitions
77 cases argued, 72 decided after argument
About 1% of all petitions!
7,738 total Petitions
+
Statistics compiled from Chief Justice Roberts’s 2009 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary and SCOTUSBlog, 6.29.09 StatPack
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Cert Overload•With 8,000 petitions per year…
•If a Justice spent 40 hours per week….
•50 weeks per year ONLY reading cert
petitions...
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Cert Overload
15 minutes per petition!
The Justices cannot possibly read all the cert petitions. They just don’t have the time.
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Cert Pool
IN the pool NOT in the pool
Roberts
Scalia
Kennedy
Sotomayor
Thomas
Ginsburg
Breyer
Kagan
Alito
=
4 clerks x 8 justices =
32 law clerks
read 8,000 petitions
Each clerk reads and writes a memo on 250 petitions/yr
4 clerks x 1 justices =
4 law clerks
read 8,000 petitions
Each clerk reads 2000 petitions/yr
=
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Advantages of the Pool
• Saves time• Someone is more
thoroughly going over each petition
• Clerks from other chambers can mark up pool memos and give to their justice
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Disadvantages of the Pool
• Reduces independence amongst justices
• The pool gives clerks too much responsibility for setting the Court’s agenda
• Introduces unintended bias into the selection system
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ECONOMIC STATUS
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Who has the best chance of being selected?
Paid PetitionsPetitions that pay the $300 filing fee
In forma pauperislitigants who can’t pay the filing fee (often prisoners)
~20% of petitions ~80% of petitions
3-4% granted 0.2% granted
Make up 85-90% of docket
Make up 10-15% of docket