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ce cab ve senha i ft Saetntishanttnntthinlltttieneenttttinmemniemeninmentidinmetiiiteiansions memamemeenaimntion at at ee Te ee ar C D sanuary 10, 1978 BACKGROUND MEMORANDUM ON THE SUPREME COURT'S OBLIGATORY APPELLATE JURISDICTION Prior to 1925 the majority of the Supreme Court's docket was comprised of cases brought under the Court's obligatory appellate jurisdiction. In that year Congress passed the Judge's Bill which provided for certiorari, or discretionary, review of most lower court decisions. However, review of decisions of three-judge district courts and certain other decisions remained mandatory and as the caseloads of these courts gradually increased em AGA the war Ankers anabak 7 ann 50 aid the Manaacory docket of the oupreme Court. A study conducted for the Court by student interns reveals that in the 1972-73 Term 424 cases were decided on the merits. Of these cases 293 came to the Court via the obligatory route. Legislative chanyes since 1973 have certainly altered this picture somewhat. See P.L. 93-258 amending the Expediting Act 1/ and P.L. 94-381 altering the jurisdiction of three-judge courts. We expect new data from the Court in the near future documenting the effect of these changes. Preliminary data indicates there were 307 cases on the mandatory docket in the 1976-77 Term. It seems certain that obligatory appellate jurisdiction cases form a large percentage of the Court's docket. It is our view, and the view of many others (see section 2, infra), that there is little justification for the obligatory jurisdiction. Certainly there are categories of cases which annually produce questions of such magnitude that it is very important that the Supreme Court review them. But such questions regularly appear in its certiorari docket as well. Because sone cases should be heard is no basis for requiring the Court to review hundreds on the merits, disposing of many, iff not most, in a summary and unsatisfactory fashion. — Indeed, the form of disposition has led to considerable confusion in the law. in Edelman v. Jones, 415 U.S. 651 (1974) the Court held that summary affirmance carries less precedential weight than a full opinion on the merits. In Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332 (1975) it was held that a dismissal for a lack of a substantial federal question is a decision on the merits whose precedential value is unclear. 1/ See also Bosky and Gressman, "Recent Reforms Reforming the Federal Judicial Structure, Three-Judge District Courts and Appellate Review," 67 F.R.D. 135 (1976). NCUOSURE — iw ) um eS Weg Vy \) 1 are