opinion: EISLER v. UNITED STATES.
  No. 255.
  Argued March 28, 1949.
  Decided June 27, 1949.
  David Rein and Abraham J. Isserman argued the cause for petitioner. With them on the brief were Carol King and Joseph Forer.
  Solicitor General Perlman argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General Campbell, Robert L. Stern, Robert S. Erdahl and Harold D. Cohen. Attorney General Clark was also with Mr. Perlman on a memorandum.
  Briefs of amici curiae supporting petitioner were filed by Arthur Garfield Hays and Osmond K. Fraenkel for the American Civil Liberties Union; Lee Epstein for the American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born; Robert W. Kenny, Bartley C. Crum and Martin Popper for Herbert Biberman et al.; Robert J. Silberstein and Arthur G. Silverman for the National Lawyers Guild; and O. John Rogge and Benedict Wolf for Edward K. Barsky et al.
  Per Curiam.
  Petitioner’s flight from the country after the grant of his petition for writ of certiorari and after the submission of his cause on the merits necessitates a decision as to the disposition now to be made of this case. Since the petitioner by his own volition may have rendered moot any judgment on the merits, we must, as a matter of our own practice, decide whether the submission should be set aside and the writ of certiorari dismissed or whether we should postpone review indefinitely by ordering the case removed from the docket, pending the return of the fugitive.
  Our practice, however, has been to order such cases to be removed from the docket. Smith v. United States, 94 U. S. 97; Bonahan v. Nebraska, 125 U. S. 692. We adhere to those precedents. Accordingly after this term the cause will be left off the docket until a direction to the contrary shall issue.
  While Mr. Justice Burton has not participated in the consideration of the merits of this case, he has participated in this procedural action based upon the memorandum filed by the United States of America calling the attention of the Court to the petitioner’s flight from justice.