Petitions for Review: A Long-Odds Gambit

Here we review and analyze the grant rate data for SCOCA review petitions. Our conclusion is that, on average, any given petition has a 4% chance of being granted.

The Court’s Role in the California Judiciary

We begin with context. The Supreme Court of California is the state’s highest court, and its primary role is to resolve the big questions, settle appellate court splits, and ensure uniformity in the law. California Rules of Court, Rule 8.500(b)(1). Granted, capital cases (discussed below) are an exception to this, but the fact remains that in the majority of the cases SCOCA hears, the court does not function as a forum for final review of appellate court errors. Instead, the state high court chooses the issues it deems sufficiently important to warrant its attention. This has important consequences for appellate practitioners.

The Jurisdiction Provisions of the State Constitution Give the Court Near-Complete Control Over Its Docket

Again, context is important here. The distinction between the court’s original and appellate jurisdiction is practically unimportant because, except for capital cases, the court’s jurisdiction is entirely discretionary. As a result, generally the court has complete discretion to grant review in only those cases it considers sufficiently important to warrant its attention.

Several provisions in Article 6 of the state constitution define state court jurisdiction.

Article 6, section 10 defines original jurisdiction: “The Supreme Court, courts of appeal, superior courts, and their judges have original jurisdiction in habeas corpus proceedings. Those courts also have original jurisdiction in proceedings for extraordinary relief in the nature of mandamus, certiorari, and prohibition. …”

Article 6, section 11(a) defines appellate jurisdiction: “The Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction when judgment of death has been pronounced. With that exception courts of appeal have appellate jurisdiction … .”

Article 6, section 12 permits transfer of cases:

“(a) The Supreme Court may, before decision, transfer to itself a cause in a court of appeal. It may, before decision, transfer a cause from itself to a court of appeal or from one court of appeal or division to another. The court to which a cause is transferred has jurisdiction.” (emphasis added).
“(b) The Supreme Court may review the decision of a court of appeal in any …” (emphasis added).
“(d) This section shall not apply to an appeal involving a judgment of death.”

In summary, the court can hear or transfer any non-capital appeal. The court alone is responsible for reviewing capital cases.

All California courts have original jurisdiction to hear petitions for habeas corpus, mandamus, certiorari, and prohibition. The high court’s original jurisdiction, coupled with its power to transfer cases, results in this practical reality: while a practitioner may file a petition for extraordinary relief initially and directly in the state’s highest court, the matter will be transferred to a lower court except in the most unusual circumstances. (Note that this excludes the two to three thousand noncapital habeas petitions the court receives—and acts on without transferring—each year.)

Together, these provisions give this result: the court’s only mandatory jurisdiction is the trial court judgments of death, in which cases it functions as an appellate court. In all other cases the court’s jurisdiction is permissive.

The conventional wisdom holds that the court’s criminal docket, and the capital appeals in particular, have overwhelmed the court and resulted in other matters receiving less than their deserved amount of the court’s attention. We conclude that this is not true.

Overall Incoming and Outgoing Case Data

All of the data herein is taken from the Judicial Council of California’s annual Court Statistics Reports, available at http://www.courts.ca.gov/13421.htm

Consider the data from this recent sample year, fiscal 2012-13.

The court issued 94 written opinions during the year.
The court received 4,188 petitions seeking review from a Court of Appeal decision in an appeal or an original writ proceeding.
1,108 of these petitions for review arose from civil matters, and 3,080 from criminal matters.
The court received 2,911 petitions seeking original writ relief.
Of the petitions seeking original writ relief, 174 arose out of civil matters and 2,737 arose out of criminal matters.
A total of 13 automatic appeals were filed following a judgment of death, and the court disposed of 21 capital appeals by opinion.
The court received 30 habeas petitions related to automatic appeals.

There are several important takeaways from these numbers. First, we can conclude that the automatic appeals do not significantly contribute to the volume. Compare the 13 automatic appeals to the 4,188 review petitions; the ratio 13:4,188 is vanishingly small, and the automatic appeals represent only 0.3% of the petitions for review. The comparison is even more dramatic if the 2,911 original jurisdiction matters are included: 13:7,099, or just 0.1%.

Second, we can conclude that the automatic appeals are not disproportionately represented in the cases that make it onto the court’s docket. Instead, the court’s docket is divided roughly into thirds between capital appeals, civil cases, and non-capital criminal cases.