Question about appeals to higher courts

Are appeals to higher courts always heard, or can they be refused? I know SCOTUS can refuse to hear cases, but I'm not sure about the others.
Also, do you think SDSO will appeal if they lose?

My tealeaves readings is no. Gore is a conservative republican with desires for higher statewide office and doing an appeal would do a major amount of harm to him politically. Also, he won't pull a reverse Fenty, which is appeal rather than take the fall for the gun control team. Everyone was begging Fenty to not appeal. He did. Gore is smarter than that.

Gray Peterson said:

My tealeaves readings is no. Gore is a conservative republican with desires for higher statewide office and doing an appeal would do a major amount of harm to him politically. Also, he won't pull a reverse Fenty, which is appeal rather than take the fall for the gun control team. Everyone was begging Fenty to not appeal. He did. Gore is smarter than that.

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Your tea leaves caused me to pull a hamstring doing a happy dance. :banana:

Also, on your question...

An appeal to a 3 judge panel is always allowed regardless (unless there's an underlying standing issue, like with Prop 8, but even so the 3 judge 9th Circuit Court court is still hearing the case). It is when it goes higher, like en banc or to SCOTUS, it's an optional.