Fear of the DIG and the SCOTUS docket
I never get tired of SCOTUS docket and cert pool discussions, and so I read with interest this ABA Journal article entitled, “Clerks Avoid Getting Their DIGs In: They just say no to cert petitions, as the court’s docket shrinks.” Here are some interesting excerpts:
Forcing the court to look bad is not something that clerks want to do. And avoiding a DIG ruling is among the advice clerks pass on each summer as their replacements take their seats in the cert pool, a cooperative in which clerks for eight of the nine justices review the thousands of petitions asking for a hearing….
It’s better, some former clerks say, to be seen as someone who rarely, if ever, recommends that cert petitions be granted. That, coupled with clerks’ lack of practice experience and the fact that all the justices except John Paul Stevens participate in the cert pool, could be one of the key reasons for the decline in the number of petitions granted — and the consequent shrinking of the Supreme Court’s case docket, according to a number of legal scholars….
Even if a [cert pool] memo recommends that cert be denied and the justices instead decide to grant it, [former clerks] say, it’s less embarrassing than being seen as someone who recommends grants too often. And there’s the notion that finding a reason to deny cert showcases a clerk’s legal skills.
Some related posts on sentencing and the SCOTUS docket: