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.
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 the presence of law enforcement parties in a case affects the chances for acceptance by the Supreme Court. The results show that the Court is slightly less likely to accept a case for review when a law enforcement entity is present. A more detailed examination, however, shows the Court to be much more likely to accept a case when a law enforcement entity is the appellant and very unlikely when the appellee. There were also differences between law enforcement and other government entities and between federal and state or local law enforcement entities as parties.