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White Paper on The Judiciary Act of 1925
The Judiciary Act of 1925 43 Stat. 936, also known as the Certiorari Act, was an act of
the United States Congress which sought to reduce the workload of the Supreme Court
of the United States.
Although the Judiciary Act of 1891 (which created the United States courts of appeals
and rendered a small part of the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction discretionary subject to
grant of writ of Certiorari) had relieved pressure on the Supreme Court's docket, the
court remained obliged to rule:
on the merits all cases appealed to it over which it had jurisdiction … [after the 1891 act,
] Congress gave the Court discretionary review authority over appellate decisions in
diversity, patent, revenue, criminal and admiralty cases. Parties wishing to appeal such
cases would file a petition for certiorari, which the Court could grant or deny without
passing on the merits.[1]
Nonetheless, the number of appeals was a one-way upward ratchet, and the Justices
argued that the only way to fix the problem once and for all was to have the Court
conduct virtually all of its business by way of act of Certiorari.
Pushed by Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft, Congress passed
the 1925 Act, which rendered the majority of the Supreme Court's workload
discretionary, by removing the possibility of direct appeal to the court in most
circumstances. Henceforth, pursuant to §237(b) of the act, appellants would file
petitions for writs of Certiorari with the Supreme Court, which would be accepted at the
discretion of four of the nine Justices. “No longer did the Court have to hear almost
every case an unhappy litigant presented to it.” Instead, for the most part, the Court
could select only those relatively few cases involving issues important enough to require
a decision from the Supreme Court. [2]
Further Information
Sternberg, Jonathan: “Deciding Not to Decide, The Judiciary Act of 1925 and the
Discretionary Court,” The Journal of Supreme Court History, Vol. 33, pp. 1-16 (March
2008).
External Links
Text of the bill
The Supreme Court Historical Society: Merlo Pusey, The Judge’s Bill After Half a
Century
Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Act_of_1925