The Judiciary Act of 1925
gives the United States Supreme Court the power to grant a writ of certiorari before judgment.
Supreme Court Rule 11 provides that certiorari before judgment will be
granted if and only if there is a showing that the case is of such imperative public
importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and
to require immediate determination by the Supreme Court. According to
the respected Supreme Court treatise, Stern and Gressman, Supreme
Court Practice, the public interest in a speedy determination must be
exceptional to justify going around the court of appeals.
For example, the
Nazi saboteurs case during World War II (Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 20 (1942), the Steel Seizure case (Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 584 (1952),
the Watergate tapes case, (United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 686-87 (1974), the Iranian hostage crisis, (Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654, 660 (1981), and the Trump tariffs based on "emergency" (Learning Resources, Inc., et al. v. Trump, President of the United States, et al.) decided February 20, 2026, all satisfied the requirement of exceptionality. In each of those cases, not only were the questions presented determined to be of the utmost national importance but also time was of the essence.
Your knowledge of Rule 11 and the history of Rule 11 prepare you to challenge and educate the armchair scholars who frequently express the opinion that it takes a long, long time to achieve a Supreme Court hearing and decision. That is a true statement in most but not all cases that eventually find their way to a United States Supreme Court hearing and decision!
It will be interesting to see how often President Donald Trump is successful in utilizing Rule 11 with a writ of certiorari before judgment.
The Judiciary Act of 1925
gives the United States Supreme Court the power to grant a writ of certiorari before judgment.
Supreme Court Rule 11 provides that certiorari before judgment will be
granted if and only if there is a showing that the case is of such imperative public
importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and
to require immediate determination by the Supreme Court. According to
the respected Supreme Court treatise, Stern and Gressman, Supreme
Court Practice, the public interest in a speedy determination must be
exceptional to justify going around the court of appeals.
