The Supreme Court does not decide cases: it decides questions. Whether or not the case is interesting, the legal questions the parties asked the Court to resolve were evidently not worth its time.
Anyone is entitled to keep appealing a case until they hit the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court only hears the case if it contains issues they find interesting or worthy of exploration.
There was a famous case where a guy appealed a parking ticket all the way: the court declined to hear the case, but did write a per curiam scolding him for wasting their time.
Here, the underlying claim was paper-thin and apparently fake, but the appeals present interesting legal issues.
The court does not consider it. Which means this is open to be considered by future courts. I'm suggesting how this might be argued in front of those courts.
> When a court declines to hear an appeal, they are simply saying that the below court handled the case appropriately.
No, they emphatically are not.
When a courts with discretionary appellate jurisdiction (in the US federal judiciary that's mostly the Supreme Court) declines an appeal, it is not the same as saying the court below is right, its saying “we have limited time and this case and the question it presents isn't important enough for us to spend time reviewing in detail, either procedurally or on the merits”.
There are fairly well-known factors that influence decisions to take cases by the Supreme Court (the issue having a thin record at the apellate level being a negative factor, a conflict between the circuits on a question being a positive one, among many others) that have nothing to do with whether the case is right or wrong, but have more to do with whether it raises issues that have been well vetted and for which there is some urgency (as arises from inconsistent application of the law) to resolve.
> To say that SCOTUS "refuses" to hear cases on Terry cases, they are saying that the lower courts were correct.
No, they aren't.
> It's not like they are dodging their responsibilities when declining to hear an appeal.
In general, no, because making those decisions on hearing cases is their responsibility. The particular decisions can be instances of non-, mis-, or mal-feasance in those duties, though.
The lowest courts hear issues related to legality of actions. Appeals courts may overturn if the government is acting outside of its authority (the constitution).
In this case, he's already gone through the appeals court, which made a bad decision.
The supreme Court only hears cases on constitutionality.
The proponents did defend it in federal court. They lost.
It's true that the Supreme Court wasn't interesting in hearing from them again, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that if they had, it would have turned out as anything different than their disastrous showing in federal court. Remember, they were going to the Supreme Court seeking appeal, which means they don't get to re-litigate the whole thing, just to raise questions about particular points of law. The findings of fact would stand, and as far as facts went, they had nothing.
Yeah, seems a little strange to ask a question like that after the court already ruled in their favor. Whether you like it or not, clearly they did have a case.
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