With minor exceptions, a litigant has no automatic right to have his case heard before the United States Supreme Court. (The Constitution specifies that the Supreme Court may exercise original jurisdiction in cases affecting ambassadors and other diplomats, as well as in cases in which a state is a party. In all other cases, the Supreme Court has only appellate jurisdiction.) Rather, a party who wants the Supreme Court to review federal appellate court or state court decision that involves federal statutory or common law must file a petition for writ of certiorari. If the Supreme Court grants the petition, the case is scheduled for the filing of briefs and for oral argument. Four of the nine justices must vote to grant a writ of certiorari (the so-called Rule of Four). Only a fraction of the petitions submitted to the Supreme Court will be accepted; approximately 7500 petitions are presented each year and somewhere between 80 and 150 are granted.
Due to the number of petitions submitted, the Supreme Court has developed a mechanism to review the petitions called the “cert pool.” (Only Justice John Paul Stevens does not participate; his law clerks review the petitions independently of the cert pool.) A copy of each petition received by the Court goes to the pool, is assigned to a random clerk in the pool, and that clerk then prepares a memo for all of the Justices participating in the pool.