Minor changes in the Court’s rules

By Lyle Denniston
on Mar 14, 2005 at 4:52 pm

The Supreme Court on Monday approved two changes in its rules, and ordered them into effect on May 2, governing all cases begun after that date and, if feasible, pending cases. The two changes are minor.

In the first, the Court amended its Rule 13.3 to clarify the time allowed for filing a petition for review by the Supreme Court. Under federal law, a petition must be filed within 90 days after the formal judgment is issued in a case in a lower court. The Court’s Rule 13.3 had specified that the 90-day period would be interrupted if a petition for rehearing was filed in the lower court “by any party.”

A change in Rule 13.3 was necessary, according to the Supreme Court Clerk’s Comment released Monday, to take into account the Justices’ decision last June 14 in Hibbs v. Winn (docket 02-1809). The Court ruled in Hibbs that, even if no party filed for rehearing, the 90 days would be interrupted if the lower court acting on its own had decided to consider rehearing. Once the 90-day period was interrupted by such a court order, it would not resume running until rehearing was denied or until a final decision was reached after rehearing, the Court said in Hibbs. What was important to Congress, the Court said there, was that there be a final adjudication in the lower court. Former Rule 13.3 thus added a condition that was not in the underlying federal statute, the Court added in Hibbs. The new Rule 13.3 implements that decision.

The amended Rule also allows for an interruption of the 90-day filing period if a lower court had actually considered a petition for rehearing, even though that petition had been filed too late. The Court had decided in Missouri v. Jenkins, in 1990 (495 U.S. 33) that a certiorari petition was filed on time where a lower court had treated a party’s papers as a petition for hearing, even ifthat had been filed late. The Court cited that earlier ruling in its Hibbs decision in noting another situation in which the 90-day period could be suspended. Revised Rule 13.3 implements that concept, too, although the Clerk’s Comment does not mention the Jenkins decision specifically.

In the second change announced Monday, the Court revised its Rule 47 to include, as “state courts” covered by the Rule, the courts of the Northern Mariana Islands and the local courts of Guam. Previously, that portion of the rule mentioned only the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Puerto Rico Supreme Court as “state courts” for purposes of the rule. The revised rule also adds that the statutes of the Northern Marianas and Guam are considered “state statutes” under its rules. The Clerk’s Comment said the change resulted from alterations in federal law giving the Supreme Court certiorari jurisdiction over the courts in those locales.