# Rule of Four The Rule of Four is the Supreme Court's internal practice of granting a petition for a [[Writ of Certiorari]] when at least four of the nine justices vote to hear the case — a deliberate exception to majority rule, designed so that a minority of the Court can force review the majority might prefer to avoid. It is a custom of the Court's own making, not a statute or a written rule, dating to the Court's testimony around the Judiciary Act of 1925 (the "Judges' Bill"), which handed the Court broad discretion over its docket. The rule creates a structural asymmetry: four votes can *grant* review, but it takes five to win on the merits — so a case can be heard yet still lose, and justices sometimes "join four" to hear an issue they intend to decide against. The Rule of Four governs the merits docket but not the emergency [[Shadow Docket]], where a five-justice majority controls stays and injunctions directly. Its place in the funnel is mapped in [[How a Case Reaches the Supreme Court]].