Court Opinion

ID: 9428952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:16.460435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:16.469854
License: Public Domain

Justice Stevens,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join,
dissenting.
As Justice Rehnquist has reminded us, in “our zeal to provide ‘equal justice under law,’ we must never forget that this Court is not a forum for the correction of errors.” Boag v. MacDougall, 454 U. S. 364, 367-368 (1982) (dissenting opinion). “To remain effective, the Supreme Court must continue to decide only those cases which present questions whose resolution will have immediate importance far beyond the particular facts and parties involved.”1 This case illustrates how ineffectively the Court is supervising its discretionary docket.
*972The case is not of sufficient importance to warrant full briefing and argument. It is not worthy of an opinion signed by a Member of this Court. The disposition is explained by an anonymous author writing “per curiam,” — that is to say, “for the Court.” In ever-increasing numbers, appeals throughout the federal system are being decided in this anonymous fashion. It is not uncommon for courts of appeals to issue opinions that are not to be cited as authority in other cases.2 In one recent published case — which was sufficiently important to induce this Court to grant certiorari even before a conflict in the circuits had developed — the court purported to justify such an ad hoc adjudication by asserting that it lacked “precedential character.”3 The threat to the quality of our work that is presented by the ever-increasing impersonalization and bureaucratization of the federal judicial system is far more serious than is generally recognized. Regrettably the example set by this Court in cases of this kind is not one of resistance, but rather of encouragement, to the rising administrative tide.
We are far too busy to correct every error that we perceive among the thousands of cases that litigants ask us to review. In recent years, when we have exercised our discretionary jurisdiction and issued per curiam rulings deciding cases summarily, we have most frequently come to the aid of a prosecutor or a warden who has been rebuffed by another court.4 Today we exercise our majestic power to enforce a *973School Board’s suspension of a 10th-grade student who consumed too much alcohol on October 21, 1980.
If the student had been unjustly suspended, I wonder if the Court would consider the matter of sufficient national importance to require summary reversal. I doubt it.
I respectfully dissent.

 Address of Chief Justice Vinson before the American Bar Association, September 7, 1949 (quoted in R. Stern & E. Gressman, Supreme Court Practice 258 (5th ed. 1978)).

 See Reynolds & Richman, The Non-Precedential Precedent — Limited Publication and No-Citation Rules in the United States Courts of Appeals, 78 Colum. L. Rev. 1167 (1978); Note, Unreported Decisions in the United States Courts of Appeals, 63 Cornell L. Rev. 128 (1977).

 Rowley v. Board of Education of Hendrick Hudson Central School District, 632 F. 2d 945, 948, n. 7 (CA2 1980), rev’d, ante, p. 176.

 In this Term, see Duckworth v. Serrano, 454 U. S. 1 (1981); Jago v. Van Curen, 454 U. S. 14 (1981); Leeke v. Timmerman, 454 U. S. 83 (1981); California ex rel. Cooper v. Mitchell Brothers’ Santa Ana Theater, 454 U. S. 90 (1981); Harris v. Rivera, 454 U. S. 339 (1981); Hutto v. Davis, 454 U. S. 370 (1982); Wainwright v. Torna, 455 U. S. 586 (1982); Sumner *973v. Mata 455 U. S. 591 (1982); Fletcher v. Weir, 455 U. S. 603 (1982); United States v. Hollywood Motor Car Co., ante, p. 263; Michigan v. Thomas, ante, p. 259. But see Boag v. MacDougall, 454 U. S. 364 (1982).
It certainly cannot be said that egregious error is presented only in cases in which prosecutors and wardens seek review. See, e. g., McKinney v. Estelle, 657 F. 2d 740 (CA5 1981), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 937 (1982); Tejeda-Mata v. INS, 626 F. 2d 721 (CA9 1980), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 994 (1982).