THE MACHINE
HOW CASES REACH THE SUPREME COURT
To reach the Supreme Court, a case must
rise on appeal through the levels of the justice system.
Before cases like Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education
wound up on the front page of newspapers, they had to make their
way up the court system. The best way to envision the U.S. court
system is as a pyramid with the Supreme Court at the top. It
receives cases from the 13 United States Courts of Appeals, the
Court of Military Appeals and from state courts.
There are a few ways a case may make it to a federal appeals
court. Often it comes from a U.S. district court; other times
from a state or specialized court or a federal agency.
For example, consider a case heard and decided by a district
court. If a party is dissatisfied with the decision rendered,
they can have it reviewed in a court of appeals. If dissatisfied
with the decision of a court of appeals, the party may seek
additional review in the Supreme Court.
But the Supreme Court reviews only cases that involve a matter of
great national importance and accepts only a small number of
cases each term.
Right Place, Right Time
When a case is taken to the Supreme Court, the justices first
decide whether they have jurisdiction, meaning that they are the
right court to decide the case. If the Supreme Court, or any
other court, does not have jurisdiction, then it doesnt matter
what they think about the plaintiffs, defendants, or the merits
of a casewhat they decide will not be binding.
There are two kinds of jurisdiction: original (meaning that the
court can act like a trial court) and appellate (meaning that the
court can review the decision-making of a lower court). The
Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in a very small
percentage of casesones that affect ambassadors and other public
ministries and consuls and cases in which a state is a party (usually
disputes between two states).
In most cases, however, the court is acting as an appeals court.
It may consider cases from most lower federal courts as well as
appeals from the highest court of a state in which a judgment can
be hadbut only if the case involves an important question of
federal law.
The bottom line is that the court will consider only cases where
it has to mitigate a dispute that cant be brought in any other
court, or when the question being litigated hinges on
interpretation of the Constitution or a federal law. The court
never engages in fact-findingonly whether the lower court
misapplied the law.
An Actual Dispute
But, establishing jurisdiction doesnt get automatically get a
case on the Supreme Court docket. The court will reject cases for
a plethora of other reasons. For example, it wont consider a
hypothetical question. Any case must be grounded in an actual
dispute.
And of course, once the Supreme Court decides a case, thats it
for the appeals process. The Supreme Court may take up the same
issue at a later time, but the decision rendered by the court in
a particular case is not appealable.
But just applying to the court does not guarantee that the court will hear your case. Each year, approximately 5000 cases apply to the court, using a form known as a writ of certiorari, which is a big Latin way to say to the court, will you hear my case?
These applications -- or writs of certiorari -- are known as writs of cert for short, and when the court agrees to hear a case, it is known as granting cert.