Remand is when higher courts send cases back to lower courts for further action. In the

law of the United States The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

appellate court An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...

s remand cases to district courts for actions such as a new trial. Federal appellate courts, including the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

, have the power to "remand cause and ... require such further proceedings to be had as may be just under the circumstances.". This includes the power to make summary "grant, vacate and remand" (GVR) orders.''Lawrence v. Chater'', (per curiam), p. 166. Appellate courts remand cases whose outcome they are unable to finally determine. For example, cases may be remanded when the appellate court decides that the trial judge committed a procedural error, excluded admissible

evidence Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the proposition is truth, true. The exact definition and role of evidence vary across different fields. In epistemology, evidence is what J ...

, or ruled improperly on a motion. In

common law Common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law primarily developed through judicial decisions rather than statutes. Although common law may incorporate certain statutes, it is largely based on prece ...

jurisdictions, remand refers to the adjournment ( continuance) of

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

proceedings, when the accused is either remanded in custody or on bail. Appellate courts are said to remit matters to lower courts for further consideration.

Details

Remand in the United States

When the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

grants ''

certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of a prerogative writ in England, issued by a superior court to direct that the recor ...

'' and reverses a decision of a state supreme court or a Federal appeals court, it may remand the case. Likewise, an appeals court may remand a case to a trial court. A remand may be a full remand, essentially ordering an entirely new

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

; when an appellate court grants a full remand, the lower court's decision is "reversed and remanded." Alternatively, it may be "with instructions" specifying, for example, that the lower court must use a different legal standard when considering facts already entered at trial. A partial remand occurs when an appellate court affirms a

conviction In law, a conviction is the determination by a court of law that a defendant is Guilty (law), guilty of a crime. A conviction may follow a guilty plea that is accepted by the court, a jury trial in which a verdict of guilty is delivered, or a ...

while directing the lower court to revisit the

sentencing In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences f ...

phase of the trial. Finally, it may remand a case upon concluding that the lower court made a mistake and also did not adjudicate issues that must be considered. A federal court may also remand when a civil case is filed in a state court and the

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one juris ...

removes the case to the local federal district court. If the federal court decides that the case was not one in which removal was permissible, it may remand the case to state court. Here, the federal court is not an appellate court as in the case above, and the case was remanded because the removal to the federal court was improper. In

federal tribunals in the United States Federal tribunals in the United States are those tribunals established by the federal government of the United States for the purpose of resolving disputes involving or arising under Law of the United States, federal laws, including questions abo ...

, it is possible for an Article III court to remand a case to an

Article I court Federal tribunals in the United States are those tribunals established by the federal government of the United States for the purpose of resolving disputes involving or arising under Law of the United States, federal laws, including questions abo ...

, if the case was originally decided by the Article I court and then appealed to the Article III court, or for a higher-level administrative tribunal within an executive agency to remand a case to a lower-level tribunal within the same agency. While Article III courts are allowed to remand a case back to Article I courts, there is a recent trend towards divesting U.S. magistrate judges from the power to remand cases back to state court. The same statutory basis for divesting magistrate judges of their power to remand may logically be applied to Article I judges.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Remand (Court Procedure) Criminal law appellate review legal procedure American legal terminology

Details

Remand in the United States

See also

Notes

References