Supervisory authority

On March 4, 2022, the United States Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, reversed the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in United States v. Tsarnaev, No. 20-433 (the Boston Marathon Bombing case). In the process, the court cast doubt on the extent of the courts of appeals' supervisory authority over the trial courts. In this capital case, the question concerned a long-ago circuit precedent concerning voir dire in high-profile cases. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch went further and suggested it was "worth revisiting" dicta (their characterization) suggesting that there even is such a supervisory power.

Quaere: how will this issue play out at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces--or has it already done so? The court's rules formerly referred to a supervisory power but this was deleted in 2015. The Rules Advisory Committee's comments may be found in Fidell, Fissell & Sullivan, Guide to the Rules of Practice and Procedure for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces §§ 5.02 & 21.02 (20th ed. 2021). The committee noted that in Clinton v. Goldsmith, 526 U.S. 529, 536 (1999), the Supreme Court wrote that "the CAAF is not given authority, by the All Writs Act or otherwise, to oversee all matters arguably related to military justice or to act as a plenary administrator of final judgments it has affirmed." The committee observed: "This is not to say that supervisory authority does not exist, only that it is not as expansive as it was pre-Goldsmith, and its contours will need to be resolved in future cases." The question now is whether, in matters squarely within its jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals may exercise the kind of supervisory power the First Circuit had exercised and that was addressed in Tsarnaev.

Comments welcome. (Real names only, as always.)