finality
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 309 U.S. 323 - Cobbledick v. United States · 1940Most cited · 2,977 citing opinions
witness subpoena
Whatever right a witness may have requires no further protection in either case than that afforded by the district court until the witness chooses to disobey and is committed for contempt. At that point the witness' situation becomes so severed from the main proceeding as to permit an appeal.
How the Supreme Court has restated “finality”
Each Supreme Court definition of “finality,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “finality”
Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “finality” — 3,228 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 4 definitions, chronological · 1917–1943
- ORIGINAL
It was settled under section 709, Rev. Stat. (section 237, Judicial Code), that the finality contemplated was to be determined by the face of the record and the formal character of the judgment rendered—a principle which excluded all conception of finality for the purpose of review in a judgment like that below rendered.
judgment on certiorari
finality—the idea underlying 'final judgments and decrees' in the Judiciary Act of 1789 and now expressed by 'final decisions' in §128 of the Judicial Code—is not a technical concept of temporal or physical termination. It is the means for achieving a healthy legal system. As an instrument of such policy the requirement of finality will be enforced not only against a party to the litigation but against a witness who is a stranger to the main proceeding.
appellate jurisdiction
the necessary effect was to ask that rights already adjudicated be altered. Consequently it deprived the judgment of that finality which is essential to appealability.
for appellate jurisdiction