Who of you are familiar with a “writ of certiorari?”
For those not familiar with this essential part of the rulings of the Supreme Court, I will try to explain. In practical terms there is no way that the Supreme Court can deal with all of the cases that it is petitioned to hear. Ergo there must be some kind of screening process … this process is the writ of certiorari.
The word certiorari comes from Law Latin and means “to be more fully informed.” A writ of certiorari orders a lower court to deliver its record in a case so that the higher court may review it. The U.S. Supreme Court uses certiorari to select most of the cases it hears.
In order for the SCOTUS to hear a case, it must first be okayed by at least four of the nine justices. If a the hearing of a case does not achieve approval of at least four, then the decision on the case goes back to what the highest prior court, often the Appellate Court, has ruled. ( For those of you who desire to read a fictional mystery in which the writ of certiorari is central, I refer you to Amazon … “The Keneally Chronicles” by Daniel R. Collins)
Why bring up the writ of certiorari now?
It is because SCOTUS just considered an important case out of Texas
From the Epoch Times:
“The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a legal challenge to a Texas law that requires voters under the age of 65 to provide justification to vote by mail, meaning that the Democrat-aligned attempt to sharply expand “no-excuse” mail-in ballots in the Lone Star state has failed, with implications for other states.
According to an April 22 order list, the high court denied petition for a writ of certiorari in a case that stems from a federal lawsuit filed in 2020 on behalf of the Texas Democratic Party and several voters who requested that Texas lift its age-based limitations on no-excuse mail-in voting.
Texas law only allows individuals to vote by mail without a qualifying excuse, like sickness, if they are 65 years or older. In their original complaint, which made its way through a number of lower courts before ending up before the Supreme Court, the petitioners alleged that the Texas voting law violates the 26th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits denying the right to vote due to age.”
However, the refusal to hear this case has even more importance than just in Texas as it establishes precedent.
The high court’s decision not to hear the appeal has broader implications, however, since six other states–Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee–have similar laws on the books that let older voters to request absentee ballot without having to provide any justification.
In my opinion … score one for the good guys!
5/6/24