OCR Text |
Show SUPREME COURT I DECISIS FINAL ,Cases of Reversal Are So Rare As to Become Historical WASHINGTON. Feb. 1C. The j i phrase "and It Is so ordered'' with I 'which so many decisions of the United States supreme OQUrt are concluded li accepted by the legal profession not jonly of th United States but of the world as the -r' ist approach there is' to absolute finality. Petitions for rehearing of cases sro' not infrequent occupying much th ' same position In practice before the isuprenie courl that the routine motion for a new trial does in tho county r city courts, but occ.-udons on which the supreme court hat granted such petitions are so rare that the exeep-, Hons are historical Necessity of bringing a lego i dispute to a closo at some pd'it Is said to hae Influenced the policy of the court in this regard, a policy which has sloou Sine the days oi Chief Justice Alar-1 'shall. A secondary consideration Is the fact that the court is always from eighteen monibs to two years behind jits calendar and. unless optimistic at- torneys were curbed somewhere! the I most trivial "cause" might be pro- loiiceo i ifnosi ii uei uiiieiy MOST i 1MOU8 ( ASK I unly two clear-cut cases In which the court has agreed to reconsider its .formal decision are recalled by etoran attaches. The most famous was the, appearance of tno lute Gen. Benjamin F. liutler as a "friend of the court" to I point out what he thought was a palp-, able error in the Judgment glen In American Emigrant Company V6. Adams County, Iowa. Tho story Is told that General Rutier himself hesitated hesi-tated to take up the question of a re-hearing re-hearing especially since the formal motion had been dcnlod. but upon ' reading the record In the case ho de-l tormlned th.-.t the highest American' court should not be permitted to rest under the false construction It had promulgated. "If your honors will read my brief, I I am certain you will bo Inclined to I thank me,' he is sMd to have replied When the bench called his attention to the violation of practice If not of j clear ethics he was making. The court read the brief and volun-i tariiy reversed Ileal' B1SCOND KEVEKXAl, The second outstanding Incident wuc that of the original suits over the fed-era! fed-era! income tajc. heard In 189.ri The first Judgment upheld the act par-' tlallv. hut declared it Invalid in respect I to certain Important classes of property prop-erty William D Guthrie, of counsel tor the Interests fighting the- statute, presented a petition for rehearing, al-j (though his associates are said to ha've j argued strongly that "he let well; i enough alone " To their surprise the court granted ' the rehearing and finally reversed lt-j 'self in pari by declining tho entire! act unconstitutional. It was this decision de-cision which led directly to enactment! !of the Sixteenth amendment givlug i congress tho power to levy a fax on all i Income no matter from what source derived. The amendment did away With the constitutional reirtrlctlon Which fdrbade the. Imposition Of a direct di-rect t.ix unless it was apportioned In leach state according to population. i The rule of the court on rehearing, as mated bv Chief Justice Tahey In! 152. is simple. No rehearing would be grunted, he said, "unless S justice' who voted for the Judgment, votes fori the rehearing of It." "When this court has made a decision," de-cision," a prominent attorney said ln the course of arguing a famous case of the past, "it Is like a decree of Von-Ice. Von-Ice. irreversible; and like the laws of Modes and Persians which altereth not, neither do they change. The decision de-cision of this court Is the end of the llaw." oo |