New military cert petition

Wednesday's update of the Supremes' electronic docket included a new pro se IFP military cert petition: Gowanlock v. United States, No. 07-6927.

There are a couple of interesting things about Gowanlock. First, CAAF denied his petition for grant of review. United States v. Gowanlock, 64 M.J. 435 (C.A.A.F. 2007) (order). So the case doesn't fall within the Supremes' statutory cert jurisdiction over CAAF decisions. See 28 U.S.C. § 1259. We have, of course, repeatedly discussed Representative Susan Davis's H.R. 3174, which would expand the Supremes' statutory cert jurisdiction to cover all final rulings by a CCA or CAAF. And the Kabul Klipper notes the filing of S. 2052, with a similar purpose, in his post below.

The second interesting thing about the petition is that it was filed on 2 May, but was finally docketed on Tuesday, with an 8 November response date. Does anyone know why there would be such a long gap between filing and docketing?

Despite the fact that the petition doesn't fall within the Supremes' statutory cert jurisdiction, recent practice suggests that the SG will waive his right to respond rather than moving to dismiss. And the Supremes will then quietly deny cert.