美国有线新闻 CNN 美国最高法院即将进入新会期

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AZUZ: With eight justices and one vacancy¹, the U.S. Supreme² Court is about a month into its newest session. It will probably run until the beginning of next summer.

The high court has taken up a pretty wide range of cases. One involves whether the stripes and badges of a cheerleading outfit³ can be protected by copyright. One involves alleged⁴ racial bias⁵ by a juror in a case in Colorado. One involves money that the Apple technology won in a case involving a patent dispute with the Samsung tech company.

There's a lot for justices to consider in these cases alone, but it begs the question, how do they get on a docket in the first place with so many lawsuits⁶ playing out across the country?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST⁷: For the Supreme Court, the big issue is often what cases they hear as much as how they decide those cases.

SUBTITLE⁸: How the Supreme Court selects cases.

TOOBIN: The justices get thousands of petitions every year, asking them to hear cases. But they only agree to decide about 70 of those cases.

The main reason the justices take a case is what's known as a split in the circuits. There are 13 circuit courts of appeals, and sometimes, two of those circuits address the same issue and come out differently. In almost all those cases, the Supreme Court agrees to decide the case.

Now, what kind of cases do they take?

The Supreme Court only deals with federal law. So, they will only decide cases that involve interpreting federal laws or cases that involve the U.S. constitution which is the ultimate law of the land.

Sometimes the justices do what's called strategic voting. They think, you know, I think this lower court decision is wrong. But if I vote to hear this case, my colleagues will make the law even worse. So, I'm going to vote to leave the case alone rather than risking a bad Supreme Court decision that could last for decades.

We often hear about 5-4 Supreme Court decisions. But it's always worth remembering that it only takes four justices to make the most important decision of all, which is to hear the case in the first place.