Week 2:May 17-21-17: ch. 1"How cases get to the supreme court"Cases get to the supreme court by means of "JURISDICTION" and by "THE ROUTESOF APPEAL"-How do cases get to the supreme court via Jurisdiction?- By a request for review under the courts original jurisdiction .-Original jurisdiction cases:DEF: cases that have not been heard by any other court."Article 3 of the constitution authorizes original jurisdiction cases in two specifiedcircumstances"1.)"Such suits as those that involve ambassadors from foreign countries2.)"Such suits in which a state is a party" (usually these suits are pertaining to boundaryissues or water issues)"---------BUT;Because congressional legislation permits LOWER COURTS to exercise concurrentauthority over MOST cases that meet the requirements set fourth in article 3, consequentlyyhe Supreme court does NOT have exclusive jurisdiction over them.In sum, the Supreme court usually only accepts those cases in which a state is suinganother state and sends the discarded cases down to the lower courts for a ruling to bemade.-----NOTE:As a result only 1/5 cases per term are original jurisdiction cases ( In the SupremeCourt)How do cases get to the supreme court via "Appellate jurisdiction" and what are "Theroutes of appeal?-DEF;"Appelate jurisdicition: The way most cases reach the supreme court. Appealatejurisdiction states that a lawyer or state court has already rendered a decision on a case athand at which point the court with appealate jurisdiction is at liberty to review the decisionshould one of the parties of said case request such a review. "NOTE:Typically these cases come from the US courts of appeals or the state Supreme Court.There are three ways a case reaches the supreme court by means of the appellate route;1.)"Appeals as a matter of right"Pre-1988 appeals;" Prior to 1988 appeals as a matter of right were cases where a lower court declareda state or federal law unconstitutional Or alternatively appeals as a matter of right werethose cases in which a state UPHELD a state law that has been challanged on the groundsthat it violated the US constitution."Justices were supposed to decide such appeals that were "a matter of right". However,the justices instead failed to consider these cases and instead issued a "summary judgement(shorthand ruling_)".As a result, in 1988 with the Supreme court's urging, congress virtually eliminatedmandatory appealsThat said, our Supreme Court now is obligated to hear only those Few cases appealedfrom what are special three judge district courts.NOTE: When the Supreme court agrees to hear such cases it issues an order originalnoting its "PROBABLE JURISDICTION"2.) certification;"Second, rarely used way in which an appeal may invoke a courts appealate jurisdictionis "Certification".-DEFINITION:"Under the courts appealate jurisdiction as well as an act of congress, lowere appellatecourts can write the Supreme court justices in hopes of soliciting a response to questionsthe lower court is contemplating about an uncertainty of the federal law. Thus, the lowercourt is requesting clearification from the Supreme Court on possibly ambiguous, vague,broad, or other implicit matter. "NOTE THAT:Only "Judges" may use the route of certification as a means of invoking the Supremecourts appelate jurisdiction.CONSEQUENTLY, it is a rarity for a case to reach the Supreme Court via certification.The justices are free to oblige the lower court by answering the questions or they may alsooutright decline to respond to said questions.-CLASS NOTE:" The Supreme Court will Rarely if ever respond to the questions of the lower courts.They most always decline to answer."3.) Petitions for writs of habeous corpus; (Latin for " to be informed")"The petitions for writ of habeous corpus is the third and final means by which anappeal is brought before the Supreme court.""In said petitions the litigants are requesting that the supreme court literally "becomeinformed" about their cases by requesting that the lower courts send the case files/information up to the Supreme court for the justices to view.-"8,000 plus of Supreme court cases arrive via petitions for writs of certiorari"-FEWER than one percent of the 8,000 plus cases are granted "writ" making explicit thesupreme courts freedom to choose the cases that they are willing to review.----NOTE:"grant of cert";"The Supreme court has accepted the writ of habeus corpus petition and willsubsequently give the case a full review."Alternatively,"denial of writ";"It is the end all for the case at hand. The supreme court has refused to review therecords and the lower courts decision will be upheld."THE CIRCUIT POOL:The justices each pool there four clerks and the chief justice will have his five clerks andone clerk will be assigned to read a petition and write a memo in response to that decisionsto whether the clerk believes the case is worthy of review by the supreme court"All justices do this except Stevens and Aledo utilize this circuit pool"-Aledo has 3 clerks and not 4 clerks-" Thus if you’re a clerk for Aledo you have to read every petition or at least divide itby four"-The circuit writes memo take/don't take the case at hand.-Memo is circulated to all of the justices not just the immediate supervising justiceOut of this the justices make a decision about something called the DISCUSS LIST"If they want to hear the case they add it to the discuss list and it is followed by a vote onmade on the cases on the discuss list as to whether or not to hear that case."The clerks are able to read into things fairly efficientlySIDE NOTE:" After Kagan every justice has gone to Harvard or Yale"-CONFERENCE VOTE; WHAT IS A CONGRESS VOTE AND HOW DOES IT DECIDETHE CASES?-If there are four votes then the case will be heard by the Supreme CourtOften they abide by "the rule of four"-There is a docket sheet in the book on page 16 and under certs you can see a d or a gfor grant or deny-Sometimes you see these 3 checkmarks that are essentially saying if you get threevotes I will provide the 4th vote."ITS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT THESE ARE ALL JUST DISCRETIONALRULINGS AND THE SUPREME COURT COULD VOTE 2MORROW TO ONLYMAINTAIN 7 JUSTICES"Question- Given that we only are going to take 80 out of 10,000 cases what makes a case certworthy?Note again: "the rule of four" :" if there is 3 yes votes a 4th justice will vote yes as a courtesy"Answer;1.) If the clerks think there is a constitutional violation issue than the clreks wont want tomake