An appellate lawyer at another firm has raised a question about petitions for review in criminal law cases. This lawyer said someone at the DOJ informed him they don’t file answers to petitions (APFRs) in criminal cases unless the Supreme Court asks for an answer. So, the question is, does the Supreme Court ever grant review in criminal cases where no answer was requested?
Not knowing the answer, I took a look at the court’s online list of “review granted” cases, and checked out a few of the corresponding dockets for criminal cases. The first one I pulled up showed review was granted on the court’s own motion. The second one pending on review didn’t show any APFR having been filed; it also didn’t show any request for response. That one was a grant-and-hold. The third one was a full grant of review, and again reflected neither a request for APFR having been made nor an APFR having been filed.
This got me to wondering whether requests for an answer even show up on the docket. Not everything does, after all (e.g., amicus letters in support of review). So I went to the ever helpful folks at the clerk’s office, who said such requests from the court are entered on the docket. So, for those of you who might be curious about this bit of Supreme Court trivia, my conclusion is that the court does grant review in criminal cases where they didn’t ask for, or receive, an answer. If anyone has more info on this, let me know and I’ll supplement this post.
