An analysis of Supreme Court emergency applications from 2000 through 2024 indicates Justice Sonia Sotomayor received 73 refiled applications, more than double the approximately 31 applications predicted by a random distribution model. These emergency applications, also referred to as renewed applications, are submitted to a different justice after the circuit justice denies the initial application.

Under Supreme Court rules, an applicant may refile a denied emergency application with any other justice, regardless of whether that justice has a connection to the case. Renewed applications constitute approximately 19% of the emergency docket. Zero of the 408 applications refiled and referred to the full court from 2000 through 2024 were granted. Chief Justice John Roberts received 59 refiled applications, exceeding the approximately 38 applications a random distribution model would predict for him.

Eighteen applications initially denied by Justice Clarence Thomas were subsequently refiled before Justice Sotomayor. Additionally, 16 applications that Justice Samuel Alito had denied were renewed before Justice Sotomayor. Eleven applications denied by Justice Elena Kagan were refiled before Justice Thomas. The analysis found that 62% of refiled applications cross from one party's appointees to the other.

In September 2021, an emergency application filed for a Louisiana homeowner facing foreclosure was initially denied by Justice Alito. A lawyer refiled the application before Justice Sotomayor the day after Justice Alito's denial. The lawyer stated that the refiled application "squarely addresses" Justice Sotomayor's concurrence in a recent bankruptcy case. Only two parties refiled applications to Justice Sotomayor more than once; neither of those parties did so more than three times.