In December 1921,
Chief Justice William Howard Taft appointed three justices to draw up a proposal that would amend the
Judicial Code of the United States, and define further the jurisdiction of the nation's circuit courts. The resulting bill, created by Justices
Willis Van Devanter,
James Clark McReynolds, and
George Sutherland, took many trips to Congress (which were not lengthy because until 1935 the Supreme Court had its chambers in the U.S. Capitol) by the Chief Justice and his associates. Taft also journeyed to the
United Kingdom in 1922, to study the procedural structure of British courts. When approved in 1925, "the Judges Bill", as it was known, dramatically shrank the number of cases coming directly to the court, yet retained a mandatory oversight on cases that raised questions involving federal jurisdiction. It called for the circuit courts of appeals to have appellate jurisdiction to review 'by appeal or writ of error' final decisions in the district courts, as well as for the district courts of Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico,
China, the
United States Virgin Islands, and the
Panama Canal Zone. The circuit courts were also empowered to modify, enforce or set aside orders of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, the
Federal Reserve Board, and the
Federal Trade Commission. The bill further provided that "A final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest court of a State in which a decision in the suit could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States may be reviewed by the Supreme Court on a writ of error." Lastly, cases involving final decrees which brought into question the validity of a wide range of Federal or state treaties would come to the Court by certiorari. Four justices would be required to vote affirmatively to accept petitions, which meant that the Court's agenda would now be controlled by "judicial review" and that thousands of cases clogging the dockets could now be cut to hundreds that met the new requirements. The Chief Justice vigorously pursued the passage of this bill, taking his fellow justices with him to Congress over the four years in which the bill was discussed. Congress chose to pass the act in 1925. This action 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 petitions 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." Few U.S. Supreme Court decisions make any comment on the revocation of the right to appeal to the highest court. One U.S. Supreme court decision, however, did comment on this issue:
Moore v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 272 U.S. 317, 321 (1926). Justice Brandeis said in that case: "The general purpose of the Act of 1925 was to relieve this Court by limiting further
the absolute right to a review by it." ==See also==