United States
For the Supreme Court of the United States, this discretion is termed the granting of a writ of certiorari ("cert"). This discretion was not granted to the Court until 1891, after its docket became clogged with pro forma appeals from various lower courts. Congress then created the United States court of appeals system divided into nine regional circuits, with the Supreme Court generally only hearing cases from the Appeals level, or from the highest state court. The Judiciary Act of 1925 further expanded certiorari, authorizing the court to determine any case from a lower level concerning "federal questions of substance." Today, 98 percent of federal cases are decided at the Appeals level. In 1988, Congress further limited appeals with the Supreme Court Case Selections Act, eliminating the right of appeal from certain state court decisions construing federal law.
A similar model holds in most U.S. state judiciaries, with discretionary review only available to the state's supreme court, and the appeals courts bound to hear all appeals. In North Carolina, the supreme court's choice to exercise discretionary review depends not on whether the case was decided correctly with regard to the defendant's guilt, but whether the particular legal questions raised in the appeal have a public interest, involve important legal principles, or conflict with precedents set by prior supreme courts. In Texas, discretionary review is granted to both of the state's supreme courts (Texas is one of two states with separate supreme courts for civil and criminal cases) for all but death penalty cases, which the Court of Criminal Appeals is required to review, bypassing the Texas Courts of Appeals.
Read more about this topic: Discretionary Review
Famous quotes related to united states:
“In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941Ma date that will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)