Federal Criminal Appeals

Abstract

IT is surprising that the criminal appellate work of the federal courts has hitherto escaped treatment as a separate subject in the exhaustive literature dealing with problems of federal jurisdiction. The work of the federal courts in the field of criminal law has been increasingly conspicuous in recent years. The most important single phase in this development has been the spectacular effort of the Supreme Court in several recent cases to ensure a fair trial in the state courts, especially to Negroes, by a vigorous and orthodox application of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.' The number of criminal cases in the federal courts, and consequently the number of criminal appeals, moreover, increased considerably with the enactment of the Volstead Act, and more recent federal criminal legislation.2 In any event, a survey to restate the present nature of criminal appellate practice is timely for the special reason that the Supreme Court has promulgated a set of rules for procedure in criminal cases.8 The development of criminal appeals in the federal courts has not differed widely from the growth of federal appellate practice in other cases. There has been the tendency to grant a review as of right by an intermediate federal court of in criminal cases originating in the federal courts, but to limit sharply the cases which can be appealed as of right to the Supreme Court. Three methods of obtaining review of criminal cases have been developed: by as of right, discretionary appeal, and by petition for habeas corpus. Appeal as of right in criminal cases was formerly by of error.4 But in the Act of January 31, 1928 review by writ of error was abolished and the term appeal substituted to designate all appeals as of right.5