The SCCOTUS Act would create a new Supreme Court Certification Panel composed of 13 federal appeals court judges to review all petitions for certiorari (requests to hear cases) before the Supreme Court decides whether to accept them. Currently, the Supreme Court justices themselves review and decide on these petitions. Under this bill, the panel would grant or deny certiorari petitions based on established criteria focused on cases involving conflicts between courts or important unsettled questions of federal law, with four panel members needed to approve any case for review. Each petition granted would include a written explanation of the decision. The panel judges would be randomly selected from each of the 13 federal circuits, serve one-year terms, and could not serve consecutive terms, and the bill requires the Judicial Conference to establish operating rules within one year of enactment. The panel would issue public annual reports on petition statistics, though confidential case details would remain protected.
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