Opinion ID: 105074
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: papers and disposition in supreme court.[6]

Text: In 97 of the 126 cases only the original of the petition was filed; in the other 29 cases, at least one copy of the petition was filed, but in only two cases were there the minimum nine copies required of the ordinary petitions for certiorari. One-half of the petitions contained nine pages or less. Of the 126 petitions, 13 were signed by lawyers. In a classification of the other petitions according to the degree of familiarity with law shown by the petitioners, 53 petitions were found not even to meet a generous standard requiring only that the petitioner intelligibly allege some facts and make some minimum attempt to connect those facts to a legal principle, whether or not the principle was valid or even arguable.
Four of the petitioners whose papers are still on file here [8] submitted over 300 pages of papers in support of the petition for certiorari. The other 120 petitioners filed an average of under 30 pages of supporting papers per case. Full records, though in two cases not in due form, were filed by the petitioners in eight cases, while excerpts from the records both of the trial proceedings and of the State proceedings in which petitioner assailed the validity of the trial proceedings were filed in another 51 cases, as is shown in Table 1. No papers from the record below were filed in 24 of 125 cases. Among the excerpts from the records filed, in 26 cases a State court opinion [9] was filed from some proceeding in which the same issues were presented. There was no citation to, or filing of, an opinion or memorandum order in 46 of the cases. The first column of Table 1 [10] shows in detail what papers from the records below were filed in the Supreme Court.
The issues raised by the petitioners varied from substantial federal claims to questions purely of State law. In a sorting of the petitions according to the claim that seemed the principal or most substantial one, two or three claims were found to have been most often asserted as the principal claim: the inadequacy of counsel or representation by counsel not of petitioner's choosing was claimed as the principal issue in 14 cases; in another 14, the sentences imposed were attacked as illegal, excessive or discriminatory; in 10 cases, a claim was made that the prosecuting attorney knowingly used perjured evidence or suppressed evidence. In general, errors in the preliminary proceedings were asserted as the main claim in 8 cases, errors in the indictment or information in 7, errors affecting the pleas in 14, concerning representation by counsel in 31, affecting the trial including inadmissibility of evidence, prejudice, and delay in 41, and errors surrounding the sentence in 17. Miscellaneous claims such as denials of a right to appeal or to a post-trial hearing and defects in extradition proceedings totaled 8. Perhaps of most significance to the central problem here was the discrepancy between the claims made in the Supreme Court and those made in the District Courts. This comparison will be made in Part II, dealing with the issues presented in the District Courts. [11]
Table 1, supra, shows what papers were filed by the petitioners and not necessarily all the papers before the Court. In 15 of the 126 cases, the Supreme Court, either because of the seriousness of the allegations or the inadequacy of the record as presented by the petitioner, called for a response by the State. Fourteen responses were filed in accordance with these requests. In addition, the docket of the Supreme Court shows that responses were filed by the State in another 7 cases. In 10 of the 21 responses in these cases, additional parts of the record not already filed by the petitioners thus came before the Court, but the additions do not substantially change the picture presented in Table 1. For example, Table 1, Part 1, shows that in 30 cases, the petitioner filed in the Supreme Court the opinion below or excerpts or cited the opinion; the States filed the opinion below with their responses in an additional 4 cases. Like modifications, in no instance exceeding 5 cases, would be made in other of the items in Table 1 if it included papers filed by the State. The disposition of these cases in the Supreme Court is in marked contrast with the disposition of ordinary petitions for certiorari. Petitions for certiorari by State prisoners from State denials of relief and miscellaneous applications to this Court are almost always filed in forma pauperis and constitute about 60% of all petitions in forma pauperis. Since, as this study indicates, they are only rarely filed by lawyers and seldom accompanied by adequate records, the decision whether to entertain these cases is necessarily made upon less information and with greater dispatch than with ordinary petitions for certiorari. A rough index to the disposition of these cases as compared with ordinary petitions for certiorari is afforded by published figures showing the proportion of petitions granted. While 15.2% of the ordinary petitions for certiorari are granted, only 4.2% of the in forma petitions and no miscellaneous applications were granted during the 1950 Term. [12] On an assumption that the certiorari jurisdiction of the Supreme Court ordinarily is not to be exercised merely because a decision below may be wrong, an attempt was made to indicate in terms of considerations affecting the certiorari jurisdiction the sort of question presented. [13] Questions purely of State law seemed to be the chief claim of 30 petitions. Questions probably not of sufficient general importance to warrant the exercise of the certiorari jurisdiction seemed the chief claims in another 61 cases, 44 because the issue was one primarily of fact and 17 because the issue raised no substantial issue not already decided by the Supreme Court. Eighteen cases defied classification on this basis. The remaining 17 cases presented questions of principle, although the majority even of these probably did not present questions of the gravity or general importance usually requisite in other areas for granting certiorari.