The Supreme Court met behind closed doors Monday to consider requests to hear cases that stack up during the high court’s summer break.
While the odds of getting the Supreme Court to agree to review any case are ordinarily low, the chances of the justices selecting a case at what is called the “long conference” are astronomically low as the number of cases they consider is high. About 0.6 percent of the more than 1,800 petitions reviewed during a long conference are granted on average, according to a 2015 study published in the Law and Society Review. During the conferences throughout the rest of the term, justices grant about 1.1 percent of the couple hundred petitions they review, the same study found.
The statistical anomaly exists because of law clerks’ behavior, the study found. New clerks provide fewer recommendations for their bosses to grant review at the start of the term because of concerns about their reputations. As a result, petitions filed over the summer before a new Supreme Court term have a 16 percentage point worse chance of being selected, according to the study.
A list of the petitions the Supreme Court is considering Monday can be found at the Cert Pool website, which tracks docket activity on a case-by-case basis. While it remains impossible to determine how many cases the nine justices will take at Monday’s long conference, the National Constitution Center has identified three issues under consideration in various disputes that it views as notable, including exceptions to Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, the timing of competency hearings for defendants, and when or whether immunity needs to be granted to witnesses in criminal trials.
In addition to its heavy workload at the conference, the Supreme Court also may choose to take action in its review of the litigation on President Trump’s travel ban before its term starts next week. While the Supreme Court has scheduled arguments in the travel ban case for the second week of October, Trump’s modified travel ban that the justices allowed to proceed in a limited fashion expired Sunday. Trump issued new guidance as a result, and the Justice Department has asked the high court to request briefs from both sides on how the new guidance affects the case by 5 p.m. Oct. 5.
