The Judiciary Act of 1925 (43 Stat. 936), also known as the Certiorari Act, was an act of the United States Congress which sought to rationalize the workload of the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Statutes at Large, commonly referred to as the Statutes at Large, is the official source for the laws and resolutions passed by Congress. ... Congress in Joint Session. ... The Supreme Court of the United States is the supreme court in the United States. ...

Although the Judiciary Act of 1891 (which created the United States courts of appeals and rendered a small part of the Supreme Court's jurisdiction discretionary subject to grant of writ of Certiorari) had relieved pressure on the Supreme Court's docket, the court remained obliged to rule: This page is about Judiciary Acts in the United States of America. ... The United States Courts of Appeals (or circuit courts) are the mid-level appellate courts of the United States federal court system. ... This law-related article does not cite its references or sources. ...

"on the merits all cases appealed to it over which it had jurisdiction . . . [after the 1891 act, ] Congress gave the Court discretionary review authority over appellate decisions in diversity, patent, revenue, criminal and admiralty cases. Parties wishing to appeal such cases would file a petition for certiorari, which the Court could grant or deny without passing on the merits." [1].

None-the-less, the number of appeals was a one-way upward ratchet, and the Justices argued that the only way to fix the problem once-and-for-all was to have the Court conduct virtually all of its business by way of act of Certiorari.

Pushed by former President (and at that time Chief Justice) William H. Taft, Congress passed the 1925 act, which rendered the majority of the Supreme Court's workload discretionary, by removing the possibility of direct appeal to the court in most circumstances. Henceforth, pursuant to §237(b) of the act, appellants would file petititions for writs of Certiorari with the Supreme Court, which would be accepted at the discretion of four of the nine Justices. "No longer did the Court have to hear almost every case an unhappy litigant presented to it. Instead, for the most part, the Court could select only those relatively few cases involving issues important enough to require a decision from the Supreme Court." [2] William Howard Taft I (September 15, 1857–March 8, 1930) was the 27th President of the United States (1909-1913), and the 10th Chief Justice of the United States (1921 - 1930). ... This law-related article does not cite its references or sources. ...

External links

• Text of the bill
• The Supreme Court Historical Society: Merlo Pusey, The Judge's Bill After Half a Century