The Supreme Court received a petition last month seeking to overturn its 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage nationwide, but the case is unlikely to be heard by the nine justices.

Former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis petitioned the high court in July asking for the justices to hear her appeal in a case where she claims her First Amendment religious rights should shield her from personal liability for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples. A federal appeals court ruled against her earlier this year.

Recommended Stories

• Supreme Court schedules October rearguments for Louisiana redistricting case
• Trump administration asks Supreme Court to lift immigration raid restrictions
• Supreme Court's emergency docket orders frustrate liberal justices

Davis garnered national headlines shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges when she refused to issue a marriage license for a same-sex couple, despite being ordered by a court to issue the marriage licenses. More than a decade later, she has asked the high court to decide whether the Obergefell decision and the “legal fiction of substantive due process” should be overturned.

While the petition to the high court has made headlines over being the first request for the justices to overturn the landmark 2015 Obergefell decision, the process for the Supreme Court taking a case makes it unlikely the case will appear before them.

What is the process to bring a case to the Supreme Court?

Petitions to hear cases brought to the Supreme Court, also known as petitions for writ of certiorari, are almost always appeals of decisions from a U.S. Court of Appeals or a decision from a state Supreme Court that deals with a federal matter. The high court only has original jurisdiction in cases between two or more states and those involving ambassadors or public ministers.

Once a petition has been filed to the Supreme Court, the other party in the case has the opportunity to file a response and then the petitioner has the opportunity to file a reply to the response. Once the briefs have been filed the case is distributed for conference where the justices may consider the petition.

How many cases does the Supreme Court agree to hear?

The Supreme Court receives roughly 5,000-7,000 petitions each term, but only agrees to hear roughly 60-80 of those cases. The high rejection rate means the vast majority of cases do not reach full arguments, and because of the justices’ process for considering petitions, most cases do not even make it before the justices for discussion.

Ahead of conferences, each of the nine justices is given the petition along with any additional filings for each case. Seven of the nine justices participate in a pool, which has one law clerk from one of the justices’ chambers review the filings for each case and prepare a report on the case and whether they recommend taking up the case. The other two justices do a similar process, but with their own law clerks within their respective chambers.

Before a conference, the justices decide which of the scheduled cases they will discuss further at the closed-door meeting. Most cases are not added to the discussion list and are automatically denied, while those on the list are discussed at the conference and then voted on. Four justices must vote in favor of hearing a case for it to proceed to oral arguments before the high court.

The results of the conference are typically revealed within the following week via an orders list released by the Supreme Court, which includes the cases it has elected to take up and the ones it has rejected.

The Supreme Court has conferences scheduled two to four times per month from October through June of the upcoming term. The next scheduled conference for the justices is the annual “long conference” at the conclusion of its summer recess, which will be held on Sept. 29.

STATES JOIN LAWSUIT TO OVERTURN FEDERAL GUN REGISTRATION RULES

At the long conference, the justices will consider the thousands of petitions which have been submitted to the high court since their last conference in June.

The long conference has a notoriously low acceptance rate for cases, due in part to the high volume of petitions considered. The petition by Davis has been scheduled for the long conference, making its chances at being taken up by the justices low before even looking at the merits of the case.