Re Exhaustion of State Remedies in Criminal & Postconviction Relief Cases

ORDER

In 1979, the General Assembly created the South Carolina Court of Appeals for the purpose of reducing South Carolina’s appellate backlog. The Court of Appeals reviews criminal as well as civil appeals and this Court reviews its decisions by writ of certiorari only where special reasons justify the exercise of that power.

We recognize that criminal and postconviction relief litigants have routinely petitioned this Court for writ of certiorari upon the Court of Appeals’ denial of relief in order to exhaust all available state remedies.1 We therefore declare that in all appeals from criminal…