Editing State supreme court (section)

===States with unique appellate procedures===
[[Iowa]], [[Nevada]], and [[Oklahoma]] have a unique procedure for appeals. In those states, ''all'' appeals are filed with the appropriate Supreme Court (Iowa and Nevada each have a single Supreme Court, while Oklahoma has separate civil and criminal Supreme Courts) which then keeps all cases of first impression for itself to decide.  It forwards the remaining cases{{spaced ndash}}which deal with points of law it has already addressed{{spaced ndash}}to the intermediate Court of Appeals.  Under this so-called "push-down" or "deflection" model of appellate procedure, the state supreme court can immediately establish final statewide precedents on important issues of first impression as soon as they arise, rather than waiting several months or years for the intermediate appellate court to make a first attempt at resolving the issue (and leaving the law uncertain in the interim). 

Notably, the [[Supreme Court of Virginia]] has always operated under discretionary review for nearly all cases, but from its creation in 1985, the intermediate [[Court of Appeals of Virginia]] heard appeals as a matter of right only in family and administrative cases.  After two other states adopted appeals of right in the late 2000s, this left Virginia as the only state in the Union with ''no'' first appeal of right for the vast majority of civil and criminal cases.  Appellants were still free to petition for review, but such petitions were subject to severe length constraints (6,125 words or 35 pages in Virginia) and necessarily were more narrowly targeted than an opening brief in an appeal of right to an intermediate appellate court (in contrast, an appellant's opening brief to a California intermediate appellate court can run up to 14,000 words).  The vast majority of decisions of Virginia circuit courts in civil and criminal cases were thereby insulated from appellate review on the merits.  In March 2021, Virginia enacted a comprehensive reform package allowing for appeals of right to the Court of Appeals in civil and criminal cases.  The same bill expanded the Court of Appeals from 11 to 17 judges to handle the increased workload.<ref name="Oliver">{{cite news |last1=Oliver |first1=Ned |title=Virginia Court of Appeals set to get six new judges after lawmakers agree to expansion |url=https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/03/08/virginia-court-of-appeals-set-to-get-six-new-judges-after-lawmakers-agree-to-expansion/ |work=Virginia Mercury |date=March 8, 2021}}</ref>