Petitions to Watch: Opening Conference
UPDATE 2: One-sentence summaries of the questions presented in each case on our list of “reasonable” cert. grants are now featured on the site where you can view the full selection (here).
With the Supreme Court’s first Conference of the term fast approaching, Tom has identified various petitions that appear to have at least a reasonable chance of being granted. We have collected the full cert. petitions in each of these cases and made them available for download; click here to see the list and to read the full petitions [UPDATE 9/15: 05-1343, mistakenly omitted, has been added to the list, and three others have been removed]. At this point, no one at the blog is going to comment further on any specific cases, although future posts may feature analysis of select pending petitions.
One question in all of this is: what does it mean for a petition to be singled out as having a “reasonable” chance of being granted? To explain this notion, we’ll take a brief look at the data.
In past years, roughly 80%-90% of all the cases in which certiorari was granted were included on Tom’s list of cases having a reasonable chance. (Tom does not consider pauper or pro se petitions, as they comprise a very large number of petitions but a very small percentage of the grants.) If we suppose that approximately 80 cases are granted each year, that means Tom had flagged roughly 70 of them as having a reasonable chance at cert.
But how fine is Tom’s sieve? Well, so far this year he has looked at the petitions for 268 paid cases carried over from the 05 docket and the first 219 paid cases of the 06 term for a total of 468 petitions. Of those, he has placed 60 in the “reasonable” category (35 of which will be considered by the Court on 9/25, and so are linked to for this post). That’s 13%, or roughly 1 out of 8.
Additionally, the 05 docket consisted of 1672 paid cases, and we can expect a similar number this year. So, at Tom’s current rate, he will identify roughly 210 petitions per term as having a “reasonable” chance of being granted. As we have seen, about 70 grants will emerge from that group of 210.
All that leads up to the following: if Tom’s past success as a prognosticator is any indication, roughly one-third (33%) of the petitions that Tom has identified will be granted (about 70 out of about 210). Keeping in mind the fact that the Court only grants about 4-5% of all of the paid petitions it receives, that is the best notion of reasonableness that we can provide.
Me again, clinging to the underside of the sieve.
In three of the cases on the list (05-1413, 05-1433, and 05-1515), no response has been filed and the Court has not requested one. There is also a case (06-130) in which the Court requested a response yesterday (due October 13, 2006). I don’t see how those cases can turn up on the October 2, 2006 grant list.
Comment by Norma Chase — September 14, 2006 @ 11:12 am
I would add to this list Utah v. Shivwits Band of Paiute Indians, No. 05-1160, and South Dakota v. U.S. Department of Interior, No. 05-1428. Both petitions present the very important question whether Section 5 of the Indian Reorganization Act, 42 U.S.C. 465 — which authorizes the Secretary of the Interior, “in his discretion,” to acquire land “for Indians” — is an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
Comment by Dan Schweitzer — September 15, 2006 @ 9:58 am
I would also add No. 05-1419, Waugh v. Horton, a case presenting a well developed circuit split over whether the forum defendant rule of 28 U.S.C. § 1441(b) is jurisdictional, or whether it is a nonjurisdictional defect in removal that may be waived if not raised within 30 days of removal. Of course, I would add this petition not only because I think the split merits a grant, but also because I am cocounsel on it.
Comment by Ted Metzler — September 18, 2006 @ 4:09 pm
Pardon my ignorance, but how does one see which petitions have been filed? I’m particularly interested in whether the Federal Circuit’s decision in Coltec v. U.S. has been appealed.
Comment by moxfulder1 — September 18, 2006 @ 6:19 pm
Moxfulder1, since your case has an unusual name, it is fairly easy to search for it on the Supreme Court’s docket search page, http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/docket.html The truth may be out there, but Coltec v. US is not.
Searching for the “Williams case” would be more of a problem. To find a case with a common name, get the lower court docket number and search for that.
Comment by Kent Scheidegger — September 18, 2006 @ 7:54 pm
Re Ted Metzler’s post and the disclaimer it includes: sounds like a good way to pick them.
As a solo who is unlikely to become involved in a case that the nation watches, I operate on the parsley theory of discretionary review: even though the Court’s plate is full, a well-presented little issue might become the sprig of parsley on that plate.
Comment by Norma Chase — September 18, 2006 @ 8:08 pm
I hope you are right about Moore v. Maryland, 05-1411 (right of indigent defendant to state-funded expert assistance even when he has private counsel). (I say “he” because I do not worry about gender neutrality when miscreants are under discussion.) I’d love to have a Supreme Court case to show to the next courthouse bureaucrat who tells me “If his grandmother hired you, let her pay for the transcript.”
I have some material on my web site (www.genericlawyer.com) on the issue. There are two links on my main page, one to some case law quotations I gathered on the right of a privately represented defendant to IFP status, with a focus on transcript costs, and the other to an online article discussing state-paid expert assistance to privately represented IFP defendants.
Comment by Norma Chase — September 18, 2006 @ 10:20 pm
Isn’t Allred v. Sup. Ct. of Calif.,05-1505 (gag order in Pamela Vitale murder trial) moot now that the trial is over?
Comment by MJD — September 19, 2006 @ 9:59 am