Page "Certiorari" Paragraph 18

Some U. S. state court systems use the same terminology, but in others, writ of review, leave to appeal, or certification for appeal is used in place of writ of certiorari as the name for discretionary review of a lower court's judgment.

A handful of states lack intermediate appellate courts ; their supreme courts operate under a mandatory review regime, in which the supreme court must take all appeals in order to preserve the loser's traditional right to one appeal.

However, mandatory review remains in place in all states where the death penalty exists ; in those states, a sentence of death is automatically appealed to the state's highest court.