Legal Question in Family Law in California

The expiration date was issued by the CLERKS OFFICE of the U.S. SUPREME COURT in a letter. The letter was a reply to my California Supreme courts denial of my appeal. They stated that I only had 90 days from the denial of a review of my appeal to file a writ of cert with the U.S. Supreme Court. Is this true or do I have any options at my disposal in which to file the writ of cert.


Asked on 10/02/13, 9:32 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

You are really seriously confused. I have no idea what letter you got from the SCOTUS clerk, but it did not issue a deadline. It may have ADVISED you of a deadline established by the Rules of the SCOTUS, but the SCOTUS clerk does not "issue" deadlines of any kind. Furthermore, YOU cannot file a writ of cert. ever at all, unless you are appointed to be a judge. Courts issue writs of cert., not parties.

With that said, my best GUESS is that what you are asking is whether there is any way around the SCOTUS rule that a PETITION REQUESTING a writ of cert. must be filed within 90 days of the last lower court's decision becoming final. The answer is a qualified "yes." You can always petition a court for extrodinary relief from a deadline as long as the deadline is not jurisdictional - meaning a deadline that specifically says after x date the court no longer has jurisdiction to do anything. The deadline for filing a petition for cert. is not, last I checked, jurisdictional. So you can file a request for relief from the deadline.

With THAT said, however, such requests are almost NEVER granted. If the case is REALLY worthy of the attention of the United States Supreme Court, there is a very strong presumption that whomever wants the case reviewed will make it a sufficent priority to get the petition for cert. in within three months. Absent some AMAZINGLY unique and good excuse for taking more than three months to get it in, the request for late review of the cert petition will be denied.

Lastly, you need to realize that the SCOTUS does NOT review cases to see if they were properly decided. The SCOTUS is not in the business of correcting lower court rulings that someone claims were wrongly decided. The SCOTUS takes cases that involve important issues of constitutional or Federal law that the lower courts have developed conflicting opinions on, or that involve fundamentaly issues of the workings of the government - such as Gore v. Bush to decide who was elected president. Given that you have a Family Law case by the category you chose, there is virtually NO chance of a writ being issued. Family Law is almost entirely left to the states, AND it is a fundamental rule of Family Law that lower court decisions will not be reversed except in extreme cases of wrongdoing. If the Superior Court has ruled, and the Cal. Court of Appeals has decided there was nothing wrong, and the Cal. Supreme Court sees no reason to review it, the SCOTUS will NEVER issue a writ of cert.

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Answered on 10/02/13, 10:23 pm


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