Supreme Court Declines to Reconsider 28 Cases

The Supreme Court issued an order list on Monday rejecting requests for justices to reconsider 28 cases in which parties filed a petition for the high court to rehear the case.

Despite being the nation's apex court, the Supreme Court's decisions are not always set in stone. Parties may file for a rehearing within 25 days of the denial of certiorari, though the likelihood of the justices reconsidering is slim.

The denial of certiorari means that the court has chosen not to accept the case for review, according to its clerk's office.

"The Supreme Court granting a rehearing is extremely rare," Alex Badas, a professor specializing in judicial politics at the University of Houston, told Newsweek. "There are two possible forms of a rehearing: one after the merits decision, one after a denial of certiorari. Both are very rare."

According to Badas, the court might grant a rehearing in a merits decision if one of the justices in the majority changes their opinion and feels the case was wrongly decided.

In a case involving certiorari denial, justices might grant a rehearing if the Supreme Court "issued a merits decision in another decision that changes how the Justice view the case they just denied," Badas told Newsweek.

One or more of the justices did not take part in the consideration or decision of three of the cases that were filed for rehearing.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh and liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson both declined to take part in one, while conservative Justice Samuel Alito recused from another.

According to Newsweek, Kavanaugh and Jackson also did not participate in the court's first decision in Omar Khadr v. United States, due to having dealt with the case as appeals court judges. The case centers on a Canadian-born former Guantanamo Bay detainee who sought to have his convictions expunged.

In Brunson v. Sotomayor, et al, Jackson was joined by liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in not taking part in consideration of the case, due to all three of the justices being named as defendants. In May, they also bowed out of the case's initial Supreme Court petition.

The high court's entire conservative majority has also previously recused itself from cases, such as in January, when all six of the bench's conservative justices did not take part in a case in which they were named as defendants, Newsweek reported.