The rise of certiorari before judgment - Vladeck - SCOTUSblog

Steve Vladeck is being unnecessarily shy - we all know WHY there has been an unprecedented rise in grants of "certiorari before judgment".  We have gone from strict construction and calling balls and strikes to a solid majority with a unified agenda.  What then is the rush? It is the ideological intensity of the Fed Soc agenda, the talk show-like contempt for the libs who, it is wrongly believed, have had the upper hand for too long. - GWC

The rise of certiorari before judgment - SCOTUSblog 

By Steven Vladeck

For obvious reasons, the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to grant certiorari in a pair of cases challenging race-based affirmative action in higher education drew major headlines. Less well noticed was a curious procedural feature of the second case, Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina. Unlike the Harvard University case, in which the same petitioner, Students for Fair Admissions, is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, the UNC case seeks review directly of a district court’s decision — invoking the Supreme Court’s statutory power to grant certiorari “before judgment” in the federal courts of appeals. Indeed, Monday’s grant was the 14th time the justices have granted cert before judgment since February 2019, after having gone more than 14 years without granting it once. Cert before judgment is on the rise, and it’s not at all clear why.