Primarily appellate, but trial jurisdiction exists in a few specialized types of cases.
- A substantial federal question must be present.
- Must be a real question. If the issue was a long-settled one, then no question exists.
- The federal question must be crucial to the decision.
- Example: If a local obscenity ordinance
is challenged and the Oklahoma Supreme Court holds that the ordinance violates both the state and U.S. constitutions, then the federal question is not crucial to the decision. The ordinance could not stand even if it's okay under the U.S. Constitution because it still violates the state constitution.
- The losing party must have exhausted all state remedies.
- This involves federalism and a respect for states' autonomy. Article IV of the U.S. Constitution declares that
federal constitution and federal laws are the supreme law of the land. This doctrine of national supremacy provides the basis for the U.S. Supreme Court's review of state court rulings.
Nonetheless, a fine balance must be maintained between national supremacy and the rights of states in a federal system. Therefore, the presumption is that the states are capable of rectifying their own errors and the federal judiciary should not step in too readily or easily.
- The losing side in the lower court files a petition for writ of certiorari.
- A writ is a court order.
Writ of certiorari: the order the Supreme Court issues when it agrees to review a lower court decision; or a Supreme Court order agreeing to hear an appeal. - The Supreme Court either denies or grants the petition.
- What does a denial of certiorari
mean? Four of the nine justices did not agree to hear the case. It doesn't necessarily mean that the justices agreed with the lower court decision.
- Possible Reasons for Denial:
- See no flaw in lower court decision.
- No substantial legal issue.
- Court's allowed time filled.
- Waiting for set of facts to address an issue.
- Don't want side issues.
- Possible Reasons for Denial:
- Court agrees to hear only about 1 percent of the petitions it receives, according to a recent USA Today study.
- The Court receives the transcripts.
- Both sides file lengthy case briefs.
- Lawyers for both sides make oral arguments before the court. The justices question the lawyers, but these questions don't necessarily indicate how the justices will decide the case.
- The justices vote in closed system.
- They determine who will write the court's opinion. The chief justice writes the opinion if he is in the majority. If not, then the senior justice in the majority writes the opinion.
- Majority -- at least five of the nine justices agree.
- Concurring -- written when the majority didn't go far enough or went too far; the justice has something else to say.
- Plurality -- opinion supported by more justices than any other opinion in a single case, but not supported by a majority of the justices.
- Dissenting -- minority justices explain their reasons for not agreeing with the majority.
- Per curiam -- an unsigned opinion issued by and for the entire court rather than by one judge writing for the court.
The Supreme Court is extraordinarily selective in the kinds of cases it hears. The criteria for review are well-known among Supreme Court practitioners, but not widely understood by those seeking Supreme Court review, contributing to the large numbers of denials of requests for review. In fact, every year the Supreme Court receives more than 8,000 requests for review, but hears only about 80.
The most important criterion for Supreme Court review is a circuit split. That is, the Court primarily takes cases to resolve a conflict among the lower courts of appeals on an important question of federal law. While the Court may depart from that requirement in some death penalty cases or in matters of extraordinary national importance (like the contested presidential election in 2000), it is very rare.
Even when a case involves a legal question upon which the courts of appeals are divided, the Supreme Court often will not take the case. The Court will often deny review when the circuit split is new, or involves only a few circuits, or involves an issue that may be resolved by Congress through new legislation or a federal agency through revised regulations.
The Court will also deny review if the case is, in its judgment, not a good one in which to resolve the legal question upon which the circuits are divided. The Court is likely to deny review if the lower court also ruled against the party on an alternative ground, if there is doubt about the Court’s jurisdiction to decide the question, or if the Court would have to resolve some other difficult factual or legal question in order to decide the question presented.
For these reasons, the Supreme Court almost never hears cases to decide questions of state law, to correct errors in the factual findings of judges or juries, to review whether a court properly applied settled law, or to decide novel questions of law that have not been widely considered in the lower courts. Thus, the Court will not grant review to decide whether a criminal defendant is actually innocent, whether a state family court awarded custody of children to the wrong parent, or whether the lower court was biased or badly mistaken in interpreting the law.