Can just any federal case bypass the Courts of Appeals?

[bibliophage]

Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal (June 7, 2000; p. A28)

In 1974, the law was revised, permitting the Supreme Court . . . to choose which fast track antitrust cases it wanted to take. . . . During the past decade, Congress has eliminated many of the other fast-track exceptions that it had written into law. Currently, cases before three-judge district court panels, in such areas as reapportionment and voting rights, may be appealed directly to the Supreme Court. There is also a broad statute that permits cases of any kind to go directly to the Supreme Court completely at the court’s discretion, says Andrew Gavil, a law professor at Howard University School of Law. But Professor Gavil couldn’t think of the last time it was used.

I find the wording of the highlighted sentence to be ambiguous. I don’t know if it’s supposed to mean the Supreme Court can take original jurisdiction of any Federal case (which I tend to doubt) or if it refers to appeals directly from the district courts to the Supreme Court (bypassing the Courts of Appeals).

In either case, I’d like more information about this statute (Title of the statute, date of passage, instance when it was last used.) I knew about the law permitting the bypassing of the Court of Appeals in some antitrust cases, but I’ve never heard of this “broad statute” that Gavil mentions.

[Kent_Clark]

There are a few types of cases (lawsuits between states and stuff like that) where the Supreme Court has always had jurisdiction. I believe what the article was talking about was the power of the Supreme Court to assume appelate status. If I understand correctly, they can do this when a) both parties want it and b) the Court, at its sole discretion, believes the case has broad enough impact or is urgent enough.

It’s not unusual for one justice (each justice is responsible for appeals from a particular district) to accept a case on that basis, only to be overruled by the full court.

[BobT]

I believe that Congress can reduce or expand the scope of jurisdiction that the Appeals Courts have. About the only thing Congress can’t do is expand the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court as it’s spelled out in the Constitution. At least that’s what I remember from Marbury v. Madison. The 11th Amendment was the last time the ORIGINAL jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was limited as far as I know, but I would defer to people who actually went to law school and maybe had to take an exam on this subject.

There was also talk that Congress was planning to limit the number of appeals death row prisoners could make to the 9th Circuit because the judges in that Circuit granted too many stays of execution than Orrin Hatch thought was necessary.