Shares3
Ed. note: This article first appeared on The Juris Lab, a forum where “data analytics meets the law.”
The Supreme Court sits high atop the hierarchy of federal courts. Right beneath the Supreme Court sit the federal courts of appeals. These courts are constrained by Supreme Court decisions through stare decisis, which leaves a binding imprint.
The relationship between the Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals runs deeper though. The Court takes most of its cases each term in the form of reviewing decisions by courts of appeals panels. The Supreme Court also reverses a majority of the decisions it reviews including those from courts of appeals panels.