Court Case Flow

kalister1 said:

Let me give you my thoughts on our legal system
Whoever has the most money hires the best lawyer and wins.

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sbmike said:

OP: Maybe I'm misreading something on your flow chart, but if a court of appeals grants an en banc hearing, it does not necessarily vacate the district court ruling. It may vacate after the en banc hearing but the way it is stated on your flow chart it seems to imply that simply being granted the hearing vacates. Not a huge point, though. Your flow chart is a nice pictorial view of how a case plods along through the federal court system.

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Boxcab said:

If we look at the system as 3 stages with Stage 1 being the District Court, Stage 2 being the Circuit Court (and its reviews) and the Stage 3 being the Supreme Court, one can track the current cases through the system.

Woollard is awaiting the appeal hearings at the Circuit Court. If one is to consider the possibility of going all the way to the Supreme Court, Woollard is less than half way through the process.

More later as I can.

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press1280 said:

I'd say Wollard is further along than halfway. It seems to me that the District(and to a lesser extent appeals courts) can take as long as they want(just look at Palmer), whereas SCOTUS will take up a case, hear it, and then decide by the end of the session, even though it may not be an iron-clad rule that they have to.

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Boxcab said:

My understanding is that if an En Banc petition is accepted, then the 3 Judge Circuit ruling is vacated. It may be reinstated by the En Banc, but until they rule, it is vacated.

This is why I started this thread; there is a lot of confusion as to how the court system "generally" works. Keep up the discussion.

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press1280 said:

I'd say Wollard is further along than halfway. It seems to me that the District(and to a lesser extent appeals courts) can take as long as they want(just look at Palmer), whereas SCOTUS will take up a case, hear it, and then decide by the end of the session, even though it may not be an iron-clad rule that they have to.

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esqappellate said:

That's correct. And that is because a majority has voted to rehear the case .

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sbmike said:

I will add I believe it is also vacated so the time to petition the Supreme Court doesn't run while en banc is pending. Lastly, when I was at the DC Circuit, only one or two en banc appeals were granted per term so they are indeed very rare.

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sbmike said:

I will add I believe it is also vacated so the time to petition the Supreme Court doesn't run while en banc is pending. Lastly, when I was at the DC Circuit, only one or two en banc appeals were granted per term so they are indeed very rare.

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esqappellate said:

Right on all counts! The D.C. Circuit especially hates en banc. They have published precedent just to discourage petitions.

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sbmike said:

After all those years at the D.C. Circuit and I just thought it was because the judges were so collegial they didn't have the heart to collectively raise eyebrows at the original three-judge panel. <smirk>

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bpSchoch said:

As a clarification, this chart is for the federal courts and not the state courts.

Maryland State Courts:

District Court (in which you shouldn't be in unless you want to because it's an Administrative Jurisdiction Court)

-> Circuit Court (this is the first court that has 'real' judges)

-> Special Court of Appeals

-> Court of Appeals (ie Maryland Supreme court)

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esqappellate said:

Correct, although the correct technical name is Maryland Court of Special Appeals. Which I have always thought was a weird name, as it is the court to which all appeals are first taken first so there is nothing special about it. The MD Court of Appeals is special as it now has discretion over its cases similar to that of the US SCT.

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