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Comment by venomsnake | Hacker News Reader

What are the standards that SCOTUS uses except the obvious circuit split (having opposite laws in different parts of the country is obviously bad) for picking up a case?

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When the federal government appeals, the Supreme Court will more likely than not hear the case. Blatant conflict with prior Supreme Court precedent tends to increase the chances of the Supreme Court hearing a case. Decisions striking down acts of Congress are more likely to get heard. The Supreme Court also appears to try and "tidy up" areas of law by hearing a number of cases in a particular area in successive terms. For example, in 2004-2008, the Court heard Hamdi, Rasul, Hamdan, and Boumediene, all Guantanamo prisoner cases, in an effort to outline the rights of detainees.

This article has a very thorough description of the cert process: http://www.mayerbrown.com/Certiorari-Practice-The-Supreme-Co...

They don't really have standards for most of the sorts of cases that come up. It's really up to the justices' discretion.

_Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court_ is a fascinating book that explains how the court decides to take some cases and not others, based on interviews with court insiders.

http://www.amazon.com/Deciding-Decide-Agenda-Setting-Supreme...

They also like cases that are purely questions of law, they tend to avoid cases that have unresolved questions of fact.

I don't think I can be more specific than to say that the case has to raise interesting questions. That is to say, I'm not sure.

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