Introduction
The justice department is one of the busiest sectors of the federal and state governments due to the numerous cases that citizens raise. It is evident that the not all cases are given the time required to provide a quality decision. In this regard, individuals are likely to feel wrongfully judged by lower courts and seek to appeal the case in the Supreme Court. Many would think that this is a straight forward action that results in approval. However, it is evident that there is a significant process where Supreme Court judges incorporate the writ of certiorari to keep control of the caseload. The term certiorari refers to a writ where a superior court issues an order to an inferior court seeking to review proceedings and decisions made. In this case, the order is a Latin term meaning “to be more fully informed” an action that is rare and performed at the discretion of the court.
Discretion exercised by the US Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court exercises its discretion during the process of review. It is evident that the writ of certiorari is not a determinant of the right held by the appellant. The court has to conduct a significant review of the previous case, and how the court handled it before the alleged unfair decision made by the lower courts (Williams, 2017). The Supreme Court offers various a writ of certiorari only when compelling reasons are evident in the petition. This order is provided in cases where the court of appeals has entered a decision that is conflicting with other similar courts on the same important issue. Additionally, the writ of certiorari is granted when the court of appeals has made a decision that conflicts that of a state court of last resort. In this regard, the judgment made is seen as contrary to the course of judicial proceedings (Williams, 2017). The US Supreme Court exercises its supervisory power. Another factor that may prompt the Supreme Court to grant writ of certiorari is exercise appellate jurisdiction constitutional and federal law issues (Messitte, 2005). The review is intended as a means of settling the incident that a state court or court of appeals makes a decision on an important federal question that conflicts that of other states.
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Statistics of Case Reviews by the US Supreme Court
The US Supreme Court receives numerous petitions that require a review due to either one of the above characteristics of the case and decisions made. In each term, approximately 7,000-8,000 petitions are filed in the Supreme Court. This number is significantly higher than that conducted over the past century. In the 1950 term of the Supreme Court, only 1195 cases were filed and even as recently as the 1975 term only 3940 new cases were filed (Messitte, 2005). In this regard, the court does not have the resources and time to accurately grant writ of certiorari for all these cases. Only a small fraction of these petitions is provided adequate time for a plenary review. In most terms, less than 80 cases are given the opportunity for a plenary review with oral arguments from the attorneys with another 100 or more disposed without receiving similar treatment. According to Messitte (2005) the year 2002 had the highest number of petitions filed in the Supreme Court over 9000 and less than 100 were acted upon. The court receives 1,825 petitions all of which have paid filing fees, but only 80 or 4% are granted cert. Additionally, more than 6,000 in forma pauperis are filed by persons who cannot afford to pay the filing fee (Messitte, 2005). On average, only five or 4% are granted writ of certiorari.
The process to get a case reviewed by the US Supreme Court
Before a case is reviewed by the US Supreme Court, there are various ways in which the case can reach the highest court in the land as it seeks an appeal. These include original jurisdiction, appeals from a state Supreme Court issue, and federal court appeals (Williams, 2017). According to the original jurisdiction standard, it is evident that the Supreme Court’s authority is provided by Article III Section 1 of the constitution that demonstrate that the organization shall have original jurisdiction in cases that involve ambassadors, public ministers, and consuls along with other cases that involve he state. Only one or two cases are heard by the Supreme Court per term. The most common way of ensuring that the Supreme Court reviews a case is making an appeal to a decision made by the US Courts of Appeal which rank just below the former. With 94 federal judicial districts divided into 12 regional circuits, with each having court of appeals. The latter’s decision is appealed with a petition for writ of certiorari (Longley, 2017). Another less likely process of getting a case reviewed by the Supreme Court is through an appeal of decisions made by one of the State Supreme Courts in each of the 50 states. They serve as the highest court that has the authority of deciding the effectiveness of lower trial courts in applying the state laws. However, appeals from the state Supreme Courts usually involve rulings that involve the application of the US Constitution (Longley, 2017). The US Supreme Court will rarely deal with issues that associate with the individual state laws as they were applied in the particular ruling.
References
Longley, R. (2017) How Do Cases Reach the Supreme Court? ThoughtCo., Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/how-do-cases-reach-supreme-court-4113827
Messitte, P. J. (2005) The Writ of Certiorari: Deciding Which Cases to Review . Issues of Democracy, Retrieved from https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/gov/ijde0405.pdf
Williams, J. P. (2017) How a Case Gets Heard by the Supreme Court . US News, Retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-01-12/how-a-case-gets-heard-by-the-supreme-court
