Has the United States Supreme Court ever heard an appeal directly from a state court of first instance? I was inspired to ask this question after noticing that Robinson v. California was an appeal from a state appellate court directly to the Supreme Court. Thus the Supreme Court “skipped over” the Supreme Court of California when granting this writ. I do not have access to the case history, but I assume the Supreme Court of California denied discretionary review. Has there ever been an instance of the Supreme Court hearing an appeal directly from a state district court?
There has never been a right to appeal directly, or discretionarily form a state trial court to SCOTUS. But, one can apply for a common law writ in SCOTUS with respect to a state trial court actions under the All Writs Act which is functionally an appeal, even though it is technically an original SCOTUS proceeding. But, original SCOTUS writs are extremely rare and I don't know if it has ever been used in the manner you describe. If so, it probably happened before the intermediate federal courts of appeal were created in the late 1800s. It isn't easy to do a search of cases to determine the answer. UPDATE WITH CORRECTION: After further consideration, I think that I have a better idea of what the question was getting at and want to elaborate on that. Most state courts (Utah, Texas and Oklahoma are exceptions to the general rule[1]), have either an intermediate court of appeal and then a state supreme court (sometimes given a different name such as "Court of Appeals" in New York State, in which the Supreme Court is the name of the trial court of general jurisdiction and the intermediate appeals court), or only a state supreme court from which appeals lie directly to the state supreme court. [1] In Utah there is an appeal of right in every civil case to the state supreme court and the intermediate court of appeals considers cases that it "kicks down" to the court of appeals rather than dealing with itself. In Texas and Oklahoma, there is a Court of Criminal Appeals in addition to the State Supreme Court, which operates much like a Supreme Court in criminal cases with the state supreme court that is nominally superior only rarely intervening in criminal cases (I don't know when precisely it can intervene in those states). In every state with an intermediate appeals court, there is an appeal of right to an intermediate appeals court which must be considered on the merits, and then a discretionary appeal to the state supreme court. Sometimes in these states there are a handful of exceptions. For example, in Colorado, there is a direct appeal of right to the state supreme court in death penalty and water law cases, and in municipal court and limited jurisdiction court cases (i.e. cases in courts limited to $25,000 in controversy or less), there is an appeal of right to what would usually be the general jurisdiction trial court and then a discretionary appeal from there to the state supreme court). But, there is still almost always one court to which there is a direct appeal of right. There are a small but non-negligible number of cases where what is usually a general jurisdiction trial court serves as an intermediate court of appeals of right for a lower trial court (e.g. a small claims court or municipal court), with appeal from there only in the discretion of the state supreme court. Those cases can and very rarely (but sometimes) do go on to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court when a state supreme court denies discretionary review (in addition to being rare, few such cases are significant enough to justify the effort on the part of the parties to do so and are considered significant by the U.S. Supreme Court too), just as they would when an intermediate court of appeals rules and a state supreme court denies certiorari at the state level. But, in that case, the direct appeal still isn't a direct appeal of a "court of first instance" (i.e. a court where the original trial on the merits is held). But, there is no constitutional right to a direct appeal of right (there is only a constitutional right to a collateral attack via habeas corpus in criminal cases resulting in incarceration). The right to a direct appeal in state courts is a product of state law and state constitutions (in the federal courts it is a consequence of federal statutes). In some states without an intermediate court of appeals, there is also an appeal of right to the state supreme court. But, in other states without an intermediate court of appeals, appeals to the state supreme court are discretionary (much like appeals to the state supreme court from an intermediate appellate court and appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court). Thus, if you are in a state in which there is only a discretionary appeal to the state supreme court, and the state supreme court declines to consider your appeal on the merits, you can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court once the state supreme court has declined your state level petition for certiorari. The actual pre-requisite at the state level in a direct appeal is that your state direct appellate options be exhausted. So, if you are in a state without intermediate courts of appeal in which the state supreme court reviews trial court decisions on only a discretionary basis, then you can make a direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if you have sought review on direct appeal in the state supreme court and it declined to grant certiorari to review your case on the merits. In practice, this is still very rare. States without intermediate appellate courts are universally small in population and hence have small case loads. Most states with only a single supreme court still have at least one direct appeal of right and have had that right for most of their history. And, state supreme courts usually do exercise their certiorari power in cases that are worthy of discretionary consideration in the U.S. Supreme Court. But, in this narrow situation, the U.S. Supreme Court may consider a trial court decision on a direct appeal, without it ever having been considered on the merits at the state level. This happens rarely (although the U.S. Supreme Court not infrequently, i.e. perhaps a couple of times a year, considers a case upon which there has been an intermediate direct appeal and a state supreme court has refused discretionary review), but it has almost certainly happened sometime. It is hard to devise a legal research search that would locate such a case, however, and strictly speaking, the denial of certiorari can be seen as a state supreme court ruling that is required in almost every case.
You may want to select a state where you have some sort of presence. According to this article, personal jurisdiction can be waived, but subject matter jurisdiction can not, and "for pragmatic reasons some states deny subject-matter jurisdiction to specific claims, such as those arising in other states". In other words, if nothing about you, the other party, or the case has any relation to the state, the court doesn't necessarily have to listen to the case. And if that happens, the provision about them submitting to the jurisdiction is worthless. Beyond that, are you OK with going to court in the location you select? Do you know whether all your terms and conditions are valid in that location? Do you know whether one place or another has more favorable interpretations of the laws, or more favorable local rules, when it comes to the types of disputes you are likely to have? You probably want a lawyer to help you decide.
I don't believe your premise is necessarily true. As the Supreme Court has held, a defendant can be prosecuted for perjury after being convicted for another offense at trial: The conviction of Williams, at a former trial, for beating certain victims is not former or double jeopardy. Obviously perjury at a former trial is not the same offense as the substantive offense, under 18 U.S.C. § 242, of depriving a person of constitutional rights under color of law. . . . It would be no service to the administration of justice to enlarge the conception of former jeopardy to afford a defendant immunity from prosecution for perjury while giving testimony in his own defense. United States v. Williams, 341 U.S. 58, 62 (1951) (emphasis added). Now as a practical matter, trying a convicted person for perjury is most likely rare, since the prosecutor has already obtained a conviction for the underlying offense. Starting another prosecution for perjury might be excessive or unnecessary. But that doesn't mean it's categorically prohibited. Note also that perjury by the defendant can be considered by the judge to enhance the defendant's sentence. United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 96 (1993).
Rakusen was the appellant at the Court of Appeal. Many, but not all, appellate courts adopt the norm of listing the appellant as the first party in the style of cause, even if they were the respondent or defendant in the underlying matter. This style decision can vary between courts within the same country and can even differ between courts within the same appeal hierarchy. E.g. in Canada different provinces do it different ways, and not all of them match the Supreme Court's style.
If a law is struck-down as unconstitutional, but all the precedent used to find it unconstitutional gets reversed; what becomes of the law? In U.S. law, the law has effect again, unless it has been amended or repealed in the meantime. Is it totally dead, needing be passed anew? In the U.S., no. It is not totally dead. It is merely dormant. It stays on the books and legislators may decide not to repeal it as a political statement. It also might be considered for interpretive purposes when construing another part of the same law. For example, the meaning given to a phrase in an unconstitutional part of the law might be applied to a different part of the law that is constitutional. Can the judiciary be asked to reinstated, after which point it can be used again? In the U.S., any court can determine that a law is unconstitutional, but the extent to which that ruling is binding precedent on other courts or other parties than those to the case before it depends upon the court in question and upon the doctrine of collateral estoppel (a.k.a. issue preclusion). For example, the legal fight in the U.S. to hold bans on same sex marriage to be unconstitutional was fought in and resulted in ruling in dozens of courts at the trial court and state appellate court, and federal intermediate appellate court level before a uniform ruling was established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Further, even if the issue arises in another case where there is a controlling precedent, attorney ethics permit an attorney to make a good faith argument for a change in the law to any court, so if there is some good faith argument for doing so, the attorney can push that the issue be reconsidered. Of course, usually the answer from the court will be "no." Or can it just be enforced again without any formal process; so long as nobody sues and gets it killed again by a lower court? Sometimes government officials enforce laws that have been held unconstitutional, either because they aren't aware of the relevant court decisions, or because they think that their facts are distinguishable from those under which the law was held unconstitutional (which sometimes happens on an "as applied" basis rather than on a "facial" basis that applies to all cases), or because they think the judge before them might rule differently despite the precedent. Also, would the answer differ according to country? If so, could you please give me some examples of countries handling this differently. Yes. Many countries with legal systems based upon the legal system of countries of continental Europe like France and Germany and Spain, which are called "civil law" countries have a very different process of handling unconstitutional laws, as does the European Court of Human Rights and the highest court of the European Union. In Germany, for example, questions of the constitutionality of a law may be raised only in the Constitutional Court and not in other courts. This ruling is usually final. And, unlike U.S. courts, the Constitutional Court can rule a law unconstitutional during the legislative process, rather than in connection with an actual case or controversy relating to the law taking effect (in which case the law never gets on the books in the first place). I don't know what happens when the Constitutional Court declares a law unconstitutional. I do know, however, that in the case of the European Court of Human Rights and the highest courts of the E.U. that one of the usual remedies will be an order directed at a member state to amend its statutes to remove the offending law, with sanctions imposed if the member state fails to do so. Obviously, once such a law is repealed in this fashion, it would have to be re-enacted to take effect even if the precedent holding that the law was unconstitutional was undermined.
Generally speaking, ex parte communications with a judge (i.e. communications to which all parties to a case are not notified) are prohibited, both by law and as a matter of judicial and attorney ethics, subject to some narrow exceptions (e.g. applications for arrest warrants prior to the arrest warrant being carried out). Generally speaking, communications with the court (which is to say with judges or their subordinates) are made a matter of public record, and if the communication is about a particular case, all attorneys in the case must be given notice of it (if someone is not represented by an attorney, the notice goes to the defendant rather than their non-existent attorney). The attorney may then communicate the communication to their client, and generally speaking should communicate it to the client. I don't see anything in the question that suggests that this proposed communication would fall outside the general rule. But, the question isn't very specific and I wouldn't rule out the possibility that an exception might apply in a case with very unusual facts. Also, usually, a request to reconsider a sentence has to be made by a formal motion filed by the prosecutor or the defendant. Generally speaking, a third-party cannot file that motion unilaterally. A third-party or victim would usually only have input into the decision through the prosecutor's office. Third parties and victims are not generally permitted to file motions to reconsider sentences that have been imposed even in states with "victim's rights" statutes, but can publicly provide input to the court before a sentence is imposed, usually at the behest of either the prosecutor or the defendant. Furthermore, generally a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to not have a sentence made more severe after being sentenced the first time around. Reconsideration of a sentence once it is imposed may only be in the direction of leniency. Once a sentence is imposed, it can't be reconsidered to be made more harsh.
The Supreme Court's order is not official and binding until it is &quot;delivered in open Court.&quot; See uscourts.gov, &quot;Supreme Court Procedures.&quot; Until that point in time, the Court has not produced any legal information for lower courts to follow or disregard. When the Court hears an appeal on the merits, it will generally delay issuing its order until the reasons are prepared. On emergency motions (e.g. requesting a stay of execution), these orders are often released immediately after the Court votes, and often without reasons. If there were an urgent matter requiring an order as soon as possible after hearing, I do not see anything that would prevent the Court from announcing the order and delaying written reasons until later, but even in Bush v. Gore, they were able to decide the case and produce written reasons in one day. There is also a narrow and seldom-used ground for the Court to revisit a final order by petition for rehearing (see Rule 44 and Brian De Vito, &quot;When U.S. Supreme Court Decisions Are Not Final: An Examination of the Rehearing Rule and the Court's Application of it in Kennedy v. Louisiana&quot; (2010)).
Was/is it permissible for judges in the US to talk ex-parte like that? No. Ex parte interactions of that sort are not allowed. See, for instance, Disciplinary Counsel v. Bachman, 2020-Ohio-732 (Dec. 18, 2020) and Maze v. Judicial Conduct Commission, 2019-SC-0691-RR (Dec. 17, 2020). An example of less recent decision but with a reporter citation number is Comm'n on Judicial Performance v. Bozeman, 302 So.3d 1217 (2020). For situations of imminent risk of irreparable harm, procedural law provides for ex parte motions and ex parte petitions, such as this granted petition for Personal Protection Order. See M[ichigan]CR 3.7003(G). But the scenarios you depict fall short of the necessity for which ex parte provisions are intended. do the above scenes in the movies essentially portray judicial misconduct? Yes. A judge's house is inappropriate for communicating, let alone ex parte, his ruling (I am not knowledgeable of the films but my understanding of your description is that that judge made the ruling on the application). As for The Untouchables, any evidence of jurors' &amp; judges' conflict of interest and likely bias has to be filed in court and comply with procedural law so that all parties have an opportunity to litigate the matter.