In ancient times it was used to compel the production of a record for use as evidence; more often to supplement a defective record in an appellate court, and later, to remove, before judgment,-
Harris v. Barber, 129 U. S. 369, 32 L. ed. 699, 9 Sup. Ct. Rep. 314,-a record from a court without jurisdiction, and with a view of preventing error rather than of correcting it. When, later still, its scope was enlarged so as to make it serve the office of a writ of error, certiorari was granted only in those instances in which the inferior tribunal had acted without jurisdiction, or in disregard of statutory provisions. But in those cases the writ ran to boards (
Reaves v. Ainsworth, 219 U. S. 297, 55 L. ed. 226, 31 Sup. Ct. Rep. 230), officers, tribunals, and inferior judicatures, whose findings and decisions, even though erroneous, had the quality of a final judgment, and there being no right of appeal or other method of review, the extraordinary writ of certiorari was resorted to from necessity to afford a remedy where there would otherwise have been a denial of justice. But in all those cases it ran from court to court,-including boards, officers, or tribunals having a limited statutory jurisdiction, but whose judgments would be conclusive unless set aside.