[3] The advantage to discretionary review is that it enables an appellate court to focus its limited resources on developing a coherent body of case law, or at least it is able to focus on making decisions in a consistent fashion (in jurisdictions where case law is not recognized).
The disadvantage is that it reduces the ability of litigants to seek review of incorrect decisions of lower courts.
[6] For the Supreme Court of the United States, this discretion is termed the granting of a writ of certiorari ("cert").
The Judiciary Act of 1925 further expanded certiorari, authorizing the court to determine any case from a lower level concerning "federal questions of substance".
In North Carolina, the supreme court's choice to exercise discretionary review depends not on whether the case was decided correctly with regard to the defendant's guilt, but on whether the particular legal questions raised in the appeal have a public interest, involve important legal principles, or conflict with precedents set by prior supreme courts.