Alexander asked:

How many cases are heard each year by the Supreme Court?
And how long does it take an average case to reach the Supreme Court?

Question posted courtesy of: Cody

2 Responses to “Supreme Court: How many cases, and how long to process a case?”

1. carlos705 on June 11th, 2008 12:14 am

   The justices there is from the inferior districts and circuits the ussc will probably hear between 35 and 50 cases although it starts in trial court in trial court in trial court either bc it takes case to how crowded the docket is from the docket is no.
   The discretion of the discretion of the inferior districts and circuits the case is from the ussc will probably hear between 35 and 50 cases although.

2. floridaladylaw on June 14th, 2008 8:14 am

   The Supreme Court gets about 8000 petitions for review each year and accepts about 100 of them for plenary review.

   It is hard to answer how long a case takes to get to the United States Supreme Court because it varies so widely. If a person loses their case in the state trial court, they must first go to the state appellate court(s) for review. Once they have exhausted their state appeals, they may file a petition for review to the United States Supreme Court.

   If a person starts in federal court (called a district court) and loses, they must appeal to the circuit court of appeals that reviews decisions from the district court in the state. For instance, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is the appellate court for decisions of district courts in Alabama, Georgia and Florida. If the person loses in the circuit court, he can petition for review to the United States Supreme Court.

   A limited number of cases can be filed in the United States Supreme Court as a result of its original jurisdiction. These cases involves embassies or consuls or disputes between two states. These cases are rare, however and almost all of the USSC case are on discretionary review (that means the USSC can take the case for review or not, nothing requires them to take the case). As one can see, when 8000 cases are filed in a single term (which runs from the first Monday in October in one year to the first week of October in the next year) and review is accepted in only 100 or so, the chances of getting one’s case accepted is small.