[blindLaw] Help understanding SCOTUS responses & Authority

Sai sai at fiatfiendum.org
Wed Oct 19 01:09:43 UTC 2022


> I know that SCOTUS only gets involved in legal questions concerning the
Constitution

Not true. They primarily take cases that involve a circuit split. It
needn't be a constitutional question.

There are also a small number of cases that don't go on cert, but on appeal
as of right or original jurisdiction — e.g. some habeas appeals & state vs
state lawsuits. Most of them are denied without precedent also, though.

> what happens to the court cases they send back? Are those decisions still
considered legally binding for a time

Denied cert has no effect whatever other than denying cert.

The lower court (probably federal circuit court of appeals) decision
stands, but it is not affirmed; it has no greater or lesser precedential
value than it did before the cert petition.

> is it only allowed one attempt at being sent to them and if it gets
rejected, that’s it until they change their minds?

That would be impossible. They can't change their minds without being
presented a case, and cert is how you ask them to take a case. So if this
were true, they would never have the opportunity to change their minds
about a legal issue.

However, denial of cert does mean that's it for that appeal. You cannot ask
them to reconsider cert.

(However however, a given case can go on multiple different appeals over
the years, and sometimes — rarely — a case has had multiple trips to SCOTUS
too. But that's just like having multiple appellate cases.)

You seem to be confusing cert petition in a given case vs decision of a
legal issue that might recur in another case later on.

Sincerely,
Sai
President, Fiat Fiendum, Inc., a 501(c)(3)

Sent from my mobile phone; please excuse the concision and autocorrect
errors.

On Tue, 18 Oct 2022, 22:24 Thomas Dukeman via BlindLaw, <blindlaw at nfbnet.org>
wrote:

> Hello fellow legal beagles!
>
> I know that SCOTUS only gets involved in legal questions concerning the
> Constitution, and they can overturn a State court’s decision if asked, and
> that they only do a certain number a year, what happens to the court cases
> they send back? Are those decisions still considered legally binding for a
> time until they get brought to SCOTUS for consideration again, or is it
> only allowed one attempt at being sent to them and if it gets rejected,
> that’s it until they change their minds?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Tom
>
> Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows
>
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