Posted by Orin Kerr: Writ of Certiorari: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_30-2009_09_05.shtml#1251841985
To get the Supreme Court to agree to hear a case, a party normally has to file a petition for a writ of certiorari. But what is a writ of certiorari? According to [1]Stern & Gressman (8th ed, p.54), historically this was an order issued by a higher court to a lower court ordering the lower court to certify the lower court record. So a petition for a writ of certiorari would originally have been a request from a losing litigant to a higher court to order the lower court to certify the record in the lower court, presumably as a prelude to the higher court agreeing to hear the case to review the lower court. These days, the Clerk of the Supreme Court takes care of the record being certified without a formal writ being issued: the Clerk just sends a request to the lower court clerk after the petition has been granted (or whenever the Court requests the record). Still, the historical label remains. References 1. http://www.amazon.com/Supreme-Court-Practice-United-States/dp/1570182248/ref=ed_oe_h _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
