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60 Cornell L. Rev. 335 (1974-1975)
Rationing Justice the Supreme Court's Caseload and What the Court Does Not Do

handle is hein.journals/clqv60 and id is 361 raw text is: CoRJ ELL LAW FU EV I EW Volume 60 March 1975 Number 3 RATIONING JUSTICE-THE SUPREME COURT'S CASELOAD AND WHAT THE COURT DOES NOT DO* Erwin N. Griswoldt Thou shalt not ration justice thundered Learned Hand,1 as only he could thunder. Like all sweeping generalizations, this statement is doubtless too sweeping. But there are few who would question the essence of Judge Hand's directive. Within wide limits, we should not ration justice. But that is exactly what we have been doing, for many years, with worsening results, at the highest level, in our arrangements for the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States.' I THE PROBLEM REVIEWED The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court has been a perennial topic for discussion and for action in our governmental history. On at least two occasions, the problems caused by the Court's heavy caseload have become so serious that Congress has -made radical changes in the assignment of the Court.3 The first of these changes * This Article was delivered as part of the fifty-seventh Frank Irvine lecture series at the Cornell Law School on October 30, 1974. t Attorney, District of Columbia. Dean, Harvard Law School, 1946-1968; Solicitor General of the United States,, 1968-1973. ' Address by Learned Hand before the Legal Aid Society of New York, Feb. 16, 1951 (9 NLADA BRIEFCASE 5 (1951)). I am indebted to Professor Yale Kamisar for help in locating the source of this quotation. 2 Judge Hand's admonition was delivered in a context of making counsel available through Legal Aid. But counsel are not of much use in a case which a court is unable to hear because refusing to hear is the device used for keeping the court's docket within the limits of its time and capacity. Rationing is rationing, wherever it occurs. ' See Rehnquist, The Supreme Court: Past and Present, 59 A.B.A.J. 361 (1973).

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