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when the court publishes an order listing the cases it has decided to hear -- i.e., petition for cert granted and those it has decided not to hear -- meaning cert denied -- in its September 29 scheduling conference. That order will address hundreds of petitions.

Most cases don't get heard because they don't raise issues that the Court finds 'cert-worthy' -- particularly cases challenging a lower court decision that raises a novel issue or that is at odds with prior precedent or that reflects a split in opinion between different circuit courts. Most petitions simply seek review claiming the lower court got it wrong -- but the Supreme Court doesn't second guess every appeals court decision.

My opinion, for whatever its worth, is that the court will deny her petition, mostly because the government's arguments seem more persuasive to me -- namely that the decision below can be affirmed without having to resolve the split in the circuits on which Maxwell bases her petition (she argues that some circuits would hold that the non-prosecution agreement with Epstein and the Florida US Attorney's office would bar her from having been prosecuted in New York, while in other circuits it wouldn't. Since Epstein himself was prosecuted in another circuit, it suggests that the intent of the non-prosecution agreement was to prevent prosecution in Florida, not anywhere else.

But I could be wrong.