Agenda Setting on the Burger Court Paper 6

<p>Although thousands of petitions seeking review by the Supreme Court are filed each year, the justices only accept about 150 or fewer for plenary review, with perhaps a few hundred more disposed of summarily. Because of this low acceptance rate scholars have long thought that the justices must use some strategy or process to reduce their workload to manageable levels. Although the examination of agenda setting on the Supreme Court is of continuing interest to judicial scholars, previous studies have usually focused only on cert petitions, specific issues, particular terms, or sampling for their data collection. A more comprehensive examination of the cases filed before the Supreme Court will provide a clearer picture of how the justices set their agenda.</p><p></p><p>Drawing from an ongoing database project this study examines all cases filed before the Burger Court (1969 to 1985 Terms). The specific question addressed in this paper is whether a form of ripening occurs based on the level of the lower court (trial court, court of appeals, state supreme court) or the number of judges on a lower court which increases the chances for acceptance by the Supreme Court. The results show that ripening seems to be a factor for cases coming to the Supreme Court from lower state courts but not for the cases coming from lower federal courts. In fact, cases coming from federal district courts have a much higher acceptance rate than those from federal courts of appeal, regardless of whether the case was from a three-judge or single-judge district court.</p>