1. Article III of the Constitution • Establishes • Supreme Court in which the judicial power of the United States is Vested • Life Tenure or “good behavior” for Judges • Such Inferior courts as Congress may choose to establish • Original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court

2. Jurisdiction • Original – • The Court’s Authority to hear disputes and determine facts • Appellate • Power to review or revise a lower court decision • The Supreme Court has both Original and Appellate Jurisdiction • The Main Source of the Supreme Court Case Load is their Appellate Jurisdiction

3. Federal Court Structure Three levels of courts • District Courts where cases go to trial • Over 94 district courts with over 678 active judges • Senatorial Courtesy • Over 325,000 cases • judge rules on legal matters • jury decides the facts • Circuit Courts, hears appeals “as of right” • Try to correct errors of law or procedure • No New Testimony • Supreme Court, hears discretionary appeals

4. Demystifying the Cert Process The Supreme Court “is not and has never been primarily concerned with the correction of errors in lower court decisions.” - Chief Justice Vinson

5. The Court’s Primary Role To resolve conflicts in lower courts, interpret the constitution, laws and treaties of the United States In other words: “To secure the national rights and uniformity of judgments” • John Rutledge at the Constitutional Convention

6. Writ of Certiorari • The Supreme Court is mainly an APPELATE COURT • If you want the Supreme Court to review your court case, you will need to have the supreme court grant you a • WRIT OF CERTIORARI • An order issued by a higher court to a lower court to send up the record of a case for review.

7. ~ 95 cases are granted a Writ of Cert each year Original Jurisdiction ~80% of cases accepted come from federal system <1% of cases accepted are original jurisdiction U.S. Supreme Court U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals: 12 circuits + Federal Circuit State Supreme Court – highest state court Intermediate Appeals Court U.S. District Court – 94 districts Federal Trials Trial Courts – municipal or county Local Trials FEDERAL: 1 million cases/yr STATES: 30 million cases/yr

8. Fed. DC

9. Role of the Clerks • Clerks do many things in the Supreme Court, however, the main thing they do is reduce the number of petitions that Supreme Court Justices must consider. • 10,000 cases are referred to the Supreme Court each year • Supreme Court justices only look at about 200

10. Cert: The Numbers ~80 cases 1% of all petitions! ~6 IFP cases (0.1% of IFP petitions granted) ~75 paid cases (4% of paid petitions granted) ~6,000 IFP Petitions ~2,000 paid Petitions

11. Cert Pool IN the pool NOT in the pool Roberts Kennedy Sotomayor Thomas Ginsburg Breyer Kagan 4 clerks x 7 justices = 28 law clerks read 8,000 petitions Each clerk reads and writes a memo on 285 petitions/yr Alito Gorsuch 4 clerks x 1 justice = 4 law clerks read 8,000 petitions = =

12. “Discuss Lists” • The Chief Justice generates a discuss list, based on memos prepared by clerks. Other justices may add to the list. • All cases generated by Solicitor General (#4 in Justice Dept) are automatically discussed • So are all Capital Cases (no such thing as a “frivolous case” here)

13. The Rule of Four • If four justices vote to grant cert, it is granted • Designed to prevent tyranny of the majority • If a case does not gain four votes, a justice may write a “dissent from denial,” but this is extremely rare. • All votes are secret

14. More “cert-worthy” criteria • Conflict exists in lower courts • Important Multiple amicus briefs at cert stage Affects large number of people Unique/one of a kind case this Court must decide