The Judges’ Bill of 1925, so nicknamed because it was proposed by the justices of the Supreme Court, made major changes to the Court’s jurisdiction in order to limit its caseload. With a few well-defined exceptions, cases could not be appealed directly to the Supreme Court from the district courts. Most cases from the U.S. circuit courts of appeals and the highest state courts could reach the Supreme Court only if the justices elected to grant a writ of certiorari upon application from a party. Exceptions to this rule were cases from the courts of appeals invalidating a state statute on constitutional grounds and cases in which the highest court of a state held a federal law to be invalid or denied a claim that a state law was unconstitutional. The law made the U.S. circuit courts of appeals the final authority in most federal cases, and made the Supreme Court primarily an arbiter of constitutional questions.
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