A petition for certiorari before judgment, in the Supreme Court of the United States, is a petition for a writ of certiorari in which the Supreme Court is asked to immediately review the decision of a United States District Court, without an appeal having been decided by a United States Court of Appeals, for the purpose of expediting the proceedings and obtaining a final decision.
Certiorari before judgment is rarely granted. Supreme Court Rule 11 states that this procedure will be followed "only upon a showing that the case is of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require immediate determination in this Court."[1]
In some situations, the court has also granted certiorari before judgment so that it could review a case at the same time as a similar case that had already reached the court otherwise.[2]
The power to grant certiorari before judgment is provided by statute, which authorizes the Supreme Court to review "cases in the courts of appeals" by granting certiorari "before or after rendition of judgment or decree".[3] A party to the case may petition to the Supreme Court "at any time before judgment",[4] after a court of appeals has docketed the case. Only cases in a United States court of appeals are eligible, not any other court.[5] Any party can file the petition, regardless of which party originally prevailed in the district court.[6][7]
Well-known cases in which the Supreme Court has granted certiorari before judgment and heard the case on an expedited basis have included Ex parte Quirin (1942), U.S. v. United Mine Workers (1947), Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), U.S. v. Nixon (1974), Dames & Moore v. Regan (1981), Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. (1982), U.S. v. Booker (2005), Department of Commerce v. New York (2019),[8] and Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson (2021).[9]
The Supreme Court granted certiorari before judgment only three times between 1988 and 2004, and zero times from then until February 2019. Since 2019, the court has granted certiorari before judgment in more cases.[10]