Taking the Right to Appeal (More or Less) Seriously

Abstract

I start with the proposition that if the right to appeal has any bottom at all, its demise ought not be predicated on caseload concerns alone. I fear that if the issue first arises in the context of an administrative response to a perceived caseload crisis in our appellate system, we will never, as a practical matter, be able to consider it whole. And so I propose that now, while we remain just outside baying range, we take the time to explore what it is we seem bent on eviscerating, even as we clutch it reverently to our collective breast.