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Case Summaries for the '08 season of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Oregon v. Ice

Jimenez v. Quarterman

Altria Group v. Good

Hedgpeth v. Pulido

Bell v. Kelly

Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

Brunner v. Ohio Republican Party

Moore v. U.S.

BELL V. KELLY

On appeal from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

What is this case about?

Bell, the prisoner, appealed his conviction through the statutory habeas corpus. Accordingly, he sued his warden, Kelly. The Supreme Court only says one thing about his appeal: "The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted."

Does that mean the devil made them take the case?

While Providence is a sometimes used as a word for God, "improvidence" doesn't mean the devil made them do it. Another way to put it might be: "Oops! We didn't want to take this case after all." The one-sentence decision does not explain why.

Can you guess why?

This is Clarinet Esq.'s guess:

There are hundreds of appeals to the Supreme Court, and yet, there are only nine justices, with each Associate Justice having a small staff of 4 clerks, and the chief Justice having 5 clerks. To actively engage in the decision making process justices must read hundreds of pages of documents, and that is just the cases that have been granted review. The Supreme Court does not waste its time with cases that don't present important issues of law.

So, with so many appeals, the Supreme Court Justices must delegate the examination of the merit of many of those appeals to their staff. Rarely does a Supreme Court Justice read every appeal. Even after granting review, occasionally the Justices will discover that the case does not, in fact, concern the issue the Justices want to address.

If a case is improvidently granted, there is a good chance that the issue was misstated at some point. After briefing the Justices knew what this case was really about, and they've decided not to take it.

What now?