Right-wing opinion makers, pundits, talk show hosts and bloggers almost invariably refer to the Ninth Circuit as the most overturned of all the federal appeal courts and discard their opinions as being overly liberal and out of the mainstream. Once again, in the reaction to the latest big decision concerning Prop 8 and the status of same-sex marriage in California, they dismiss or degrade the decision as being left wing activist judges running amuck and far from the mainstream of judicial decision making as well as the mores of 'We the People.'

At one short period, the Ninth did have have higher rate of overturns but that was quite a few years back. Since then, other circuits have had higher rates and a few of the small circuits had 100% of their decisions overturned. It must be considered that the SCOTUS reviews less than 100 decisions each term, so the sample numbers are small compared to the tens of thousands of cases the the appeals courts consider and decide each year.

I found this Media Matters research piece on the subject and it's pretty interesting. Does anyone have a more recent count on the rate of reversals?

http://mediamatters.org/research/200512150016

It's just another RW lie that should not be left to fester.

Being reversed by the Supreme Court since the death of Earl Warren has been a badge of honor for the 9th Circuit. Since 99%+ of the decisions of the 9th Circuit don't get reviewed by the RWNJ Court, I can live with the 9th Circuit.

The sleazy pundits couch their words by saying that the 9th is overturned more times or more often than other circuits. Well, DUH! Because the 9th is by far the largest Circuit Court of Appeals, wouldn't one expect that?

BTW, Judge Napolitano looks, thinks, acts and poops like a porcupine.

To quote myself:

I recall reading that SR is "the most overturned appellate judge," but I forget if that was by number of cases, percent of cases he authored, or percent of cases taken up by SCOTUS.

That's why I started another thread. Who is SR?

It is also interesting to look at the history of appointments and the imbalance which leans Republican and right and how long it has been that way.

From wikipedia:

You can find the charts here and the make up of the courts at the end of each president's term of office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_ju ... ls_summary

Sorry; Stephen Reinhardt, the judge who wrote the Prop. 8 decision.

With respect to the "most reversed judge" canard, in this law review article, the author wrote:

In support, the author cites this article, in which that author cited Akhil Amar:

So "five times in a single Term" becomes the judge who is "reversed by the Supreme Court more often than most."

bob wrote:

I see that article was from 2002 and the big reaction to the Pledge of Allegiance decision. Still the drumbeat to break up the largest court and break the influence of its perceived liberal activism.

The Reinhardt wiki bio led me to this interesting piece which connects back to Perry v. Brown. It was written after Reinhardt was assigned the case and looks ahead.

http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2010/12/hail-t ... court.html

Just like Stern said. Sometimes getting reversed can be a badge of honor.

It wouldn't surprise me. It is not for nothing that some call him the Chief Justice of the Warren Court-in-Exile.

Reinhardt's wife also catches a lot of flack. She's Ramona Ripston, who used to run the ACLU on the West Coast.

Mike Dorf, Judge Reinhardt and Judge Kennedy's former law clerk, takes the view that the Perry decision was written narrowly so the it would be less likely to be reviewed by the SCOTUS.

http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2012/02/does-9 ... uling.html

The Supreme Court issued grade cards for the Circuit Courts for the Oct 2011 Term. This year the 9th Circuit did not have the worst affirmation rate. That honor belongs to the activist judges of the 6th Circuit. According to SCOTUS the 9th Circuit finished in 9th place among the 13 CCA.




http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-conten ... _final.pdf



Oh well, there's always next year.

I notice that about one-third of all the cases were affirmed and two-thirds reversed. The Ninth is not far from that with 7 affirmed and 17 reversed. Most of the courts have two few cases appealed for the numbers to show much of a pattern for one-term. However, zero for five does stand out.

One affirmed out of four for CA11 does not look too good either. I'm keeping this bookmarked for every time the old meme about the Ninth is brought up.

I suspect that one of the real-world criteria that is used in deciding whether to grant cert or not is the likelihood that one or more justices think it SHOULD be reversed. Maybe what I'm trying to say is, if there's no chance a decision will be reversed, why would the court take it up? I know I'm oversimplifying. Seems to me there's a kind of built-in likelihood that any one case taken up by the court might be reversed.

There's that ....that one or more justices think a lower court opinion has been wrongly decided or on the wrong theory or partially right and partially wrong. But it seems that the cases most likely to be taken up are those like the ACA where different Circuits have issued conflicting opinions and the issue needs to be resolved.