[lobster_johnson]

That's the procedural reason -- the case ended up in the SC because the lower court sent it up the chain, but that's still not an explanation for why they chose to accept it. As far as I know, they still had the option to refuse it.

[pyre]

> If the Supreme Court had not granted cert it would have meant that this lower court opinion would have in effect (but not technically) stood as a nationwide precedent modifying existing Supreme Court decisions.

I think this is the part that matters. It's possible that the Supreme Court would rather that the judgement came from them rather than the lower court. Leaving it as-is would modify existing Supreme Court caselaw, but the decision itself wouldn't have come from the Supreme Court, which could lead to a bit of ambiguity. If the Supreme Court itself weighs in, even just to agree with the lower court, it eliminates that ambiguity. No one is left wondering "What if it had gone to the Supreme Court" about the decision.

I am not a lawyer, but that is my interpretation.

[pmoriarty]

"Leaving it as-is would modify existing Supreme Court caselaw, but the decision itself wouldn't have come from the Supreme Court, which could lead to a bit of ambiguity. If the Supreme Court itself weighs in, even just to agree with the lower court, it eliminates that ambiguity. No one is left wondering "What if it had gone to the Supreme Court" about the decision."

Doesn't this reasoning apply to every case that comes before the Supreme Court, even those it refuses to hear?

[bradleyjg]

Doesn't this reasoning apply to every case that comes before the Supreme Court, even those it refuses to hear?

There's are several answers to your question.

1) To a certain extent it does apply to every case the Court doesn't hear. Although such denials of cert aren't supposed to mean anything you will nonetheless see in briefs something like:

"The Ninth Circuit held blah blah blah. Doe v. Smith 108 F.3d 1147 (9th Cir. 2012), cert. denied, 112 S. Ct. 60 (2013)."

The intention is to imply that a majority of the Supreme Court at least didn't strongly disagree with the Ninth Circuit.

2) Most cases come up to the Supreme Court from the Court of Appeals, not a special three District Court judge panel. The uses and limits of CoA judgement in their own circuits and in other circuits are well understood because it happens so much. That's not the case for these kind of judgments.

3) The nature of the decision itself is unusual. Most cases are fact bound, even most cases that are dealing with precedent work around the edges of existing cases.

The precedent the court below was dealing with -- Vieth v. Jubelirer -- is really unusual. In it four judges would have held that partisan gerrymandering cases are always non-judiciable (i.e. courts shouldn't hear them) four would have held that the such cases are judiciable. Justice Kennedy wrote a solo concurrence that represented the decisive vote. In it he wrote that such cases were as of then non-judiciable because there were no judicially manageable standards that could be applied. But he left the door open for such standards to appear in the future.

The court panel below held that the standard proposed by the plaintiffs was the standard that Justice Kennedy had been looking for all along. Leaving that in place without comment would have looked more endorsement than usual.

[heydenberk]

Most cases that the Supreme Court refuses to hear are those in which lower courts reaffirmed the status quo.

[pmoriarty]

Why is that? If this lower court could go against the status quo like this, what stops other courts doing the same in other cases?

[thephyber]

This[1] may help. The relevant excepts:

> The doctrine operates both horizontally and vertically. Horizontal stare decisis refers to a court adhering to its own precedent. A court engages in vertical stare decisis when it applies precedent from a higher court. Consequently, stare decisis discourages litigating established precedents, and thus, reduces spending.

and

> Although courts seldom overrule precedent, Justice Rehnquist explained that stare decisis is not an “inexorable command.” On occasion, the Court will decide not to apply the doctrine if a prior decision is deemed unworkable. In addition, significant societal changes may also prompt the Court to overrule precedent; however, any decision to overrule precedent is exercised cautiously.

It's worth a read (not terribly long) because of the examples and the rationale behind Louisiana having a different system.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis

[bradleyjg]

They only had the option to summarily affirm or take up the case on appeal. Technically I should not have used the term cert in my original post as it comes up through a different method (28 U.S.C 1253). In the old days there used to be many more mandatory appeals to the Supreme Court, but it has gotten narrower and narrower. The last change in 1988 got rid of most of the remaining paths, but there are still mandatory appeals written into a handful of statutory causes of actions.

See: http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91947 for more info.