INTERCIRCUIT CONFLICTS & TRIBUNAL

The passage of the Judges’ Bill (1925) achieved an absolute arbitrary discretion over the bulk of the U.S. Supreme Court's docket. The creation of 9 original circuits by the Evarts Act (1891) induced the divergence of opinions (i.e. intercircuit conflicts) between those courts (today, 13) and the need to resolve them.

As the Court’s certiorari jurisdiction grows and diverse interpretations of a legal point percolate, we keep looking for consistent criteria (behind Rule 10) based on which the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes to buffer, modify, or eliminate a conflict. At least two reasons are seen behind these criteria:
(1) Where an Appellate Court fails to foresee or see a conflict because the conflict is still unclear, or the point at issue isn't enumerated in the briefs (intentionally, or ineptly);
(2) Where the Supreme Court creates new intercircuit conflicts to escape from solving the pending ones.

This presentation tours you into the supreme judiciary "kitchen," views the intercircuit monitor, the mirroring conflicts, the involvement of judicial curbside (off-the-panel), and discusses some explicit cases: Rosenberg v. Yee Chien Woo (1971), Aldinger v. Howard (1976), McNary v. Haitian Refugee Center (1991), Am. W. Airlines v. Nat'l Mediation Bd. (1992), Catholic Soc. Servs. v. Thornburgh (1992), Casey v. Lewis (1993), Reno v. Catholic Soc. Services (1993), United States v. Shabani (1993), United States v. Gaudin (1994), In re Yochum(1996), United States ex rel. Long v. SCS Business & Technical Institute (1999), etc.

Conventionally, the discussion is followed by a Quiz of multiple-choice questions.

Lastly, the brave ones are welcome to leave comments about the need for a National Intercircuit Trubinual (NIT) to unburden the Supreme Court's load as well as to help the ignored cases find their stand.