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If all judges with jurisdiction over a case have a conflict of interest, they do not have to recuse themselves. If a lawsuit is filed against several people, it can be dismissed partially, with only relevant individuals included. In theory, could someone force the Supreme Court to hear a lawsuit by naming every other judge in the country as defendants, along with the actual defendant, causing all judges except SCOTUS justices to have a conflict of interest?

If one of the parties demanded a jury trial, how would that work? Can there be a jury SCOTUS trial?

Someone
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Unless you are an ambassador or one of the US states, SCOTUS doesn't have original jurisdiction over your lawsuit, so they can't hear it either.

If you've named all the judges of all the courts that do have jurisdiction, then one of them will handle it anyway, under the doctrine of necessity noted before.

For cases that do fall within the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, a jury trial is theoretically possible, but it appears it has not occurred since the 1790s, and only one has surviving records: Georgia v. Brailsford in 1794. See "Special Juries in the Supreme Court" by Lochlan F. Shelfer, Yale Law Journal 123:1, 2013-2014. Otherwise, non-jury original jurisdiction cases are usually delegated to a special master, a sort of "contract judge" who hears all the evidence and recommends a judgment that the full court typically rubber-stamps.

Nate Eldredge
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