the supreme court chooses which cases it will decide on. many people ask the supreme court to decide their cases, but the court refuses most of them. for the supreme court to decide a case, the case must be about federal law or be about the laws of more than one state. cases must first be decided by a federal district court and a federal court of appeals or by a state supreme court. even after that, the supreme court can choose not to decide a case for any reason. there are some cases that can start in the supreme court and that the supreme court must decide, but those are rare.