Supply-Side Dynamics of the US Supreme Court Docket: The Spatial-Temporal Landscape of Writ of Cert Petitions

Existing scholarship on US Supreme Court certiorari has largely centered on the demand side, prioritizing the internal motivations of justices. This approach often overlooks the broader supply-side perspective—the nature and evolution of the complete pool of petitions. This study addresses this gap by analyzing the universe of writs of certiorari from 1946 to 2019. Coding for petition date and origin, petitioner identity, and disposition, we trace the composition of petitions across eras and jurisdictions. By linking petitions to merits-stage attributes, we find that the Court’s plenary docket is selected from a geographically and organizationally uneven petition environment, that federal-origin petitions dominate both filings and the docket, and that institutional repeat players succeed at higher rates than individuals despite a steady increase in petitions from the latter. By mapping this upstream landscape, we provide a descriptive baseline and measurement framework that illuminates the dynamics of the petition supply and provides context to the demand-side accounts of Supreme Court agenda-setting.