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Interesting.. try this .. not from the NyTimes mind you.

Link

Don't get too excited the 9th Circuit court of appeals is the most often overturned court int he land. Maybe because they don't actually take the LAW into account when making their decisions. http://www.centerforindividualfreedom.org/legal/9th_circuit.htm

The ninth circuit court's jurisdiction is roughly 20% of the US population. The only reason they have more overturned decisions than any of the other circuit courts is because they try way more cases than any other circuit court.

It certainly is true they have more cases, but everybody understands that so they use this fascinating trick called "percentage" when comparing. The Supreme Court decides which cases they want to review, and of these, the 9th Circuit's cases are overturned 30% of the time, which is triple the rate of the 5th Circuit, 6th Circuit, and State Courts who tie for 2nd-4th with 10%. See this citation analyzing the 2003 SCOTUS term. In 2003, the 9th Circuit was responsible for 43%, (10 of 23) of the High Court's unanimous reversals. This pattern is a long term one and is not confined to 2003. In 1997, 27 of the circuit's 28 rulings appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court were reversed, two-thirds of those by a unanimous vote.

The reason for the high overturn rate is that the 9th circuit has a few very liberal judges who are not afraid to take maverick viewpoints that differ from those of other Circuits. For example, 9th Circuit judge Stephan Reinhart is the most overturned active judge. In the decade from the beginning of October 1994 through the end of September 2004, the Supreme Court reversed decisions that Judge Reinhardt authored or joined 53 times (26 unanimously), accounting for more than one-third of the Ninth Circuit cases reversed during that period.

Although the 9th Circuit's caseload comprised approximately 17% of the federal appellate cases terminated in the year ending March 31, 2002, its decisions accounted for close to half (43%) of all the federal appellate decisions reviewed by the Supreme Court this past term.

Although the 9th Circuit's caseload comprised approximately 17% of the federal appellate cases terminated in the year ending March 31, 2002, its decisions accounted for close to half (43%) of all the federal appellate decisions reviewed by the Supreme Court this past term.

(source: http://www.centerforindividualfreedom.org/legal/re versal_rates.pdf)

(source: http://www.centerforindividualfreedom.org/legal/re versal_rates.pdf)

As a percentage of cases overturned, the 4th, 5th, 8th, and 10th circuits were overturned by the Supreme Court 100% of the time, the 9th was only 75% of the time.

The national average is 74%...in short the 9th Circuit is statistically no more or less likely to be overturned than anywhere else.

(source: http://www.centerforindividualfreedom.org/legal/re versal_rates.pdf)

We can get into a "who's biased site has more stats proving our side" war if you want. Here is something talking about their 2002 record. And Of course, we wouldn't be without slant then a site about law that shows the averages of the ninth circuits appeals being reverses better then 70% of the time they goto the supreme court. Although, the interesting thing it that even when a lower number goto the higher court, they still have better then half overturned.

I don't think we need to go that far. It is something that just happens with them for whatever reasons.

It isn't just that they have been reverses that makes them far left, It is that they tend to have a good portion of their decisions unanimously overturned by the supreme court too. When you factor that into the equation, It makes you wonder why the cases even got as far as the supreme court. And that makes the liberal activist thing sound real believable.

For the record, both the court in Arnold (Central District of California) and the 9th Circuit are both federal courts. The 9th Circuit is a court of appeals that will hear Arnold (should the government choose to appeal), and may choose to affirm or reverse it. And until the 9th Circuit hears it, it only applies in the Central District of California (big area of CA containing L.A.).

And more importantly (cause I hear it all the time), the 9th Circuit no longer has anywhere near the highest reversal rate. Nowadays, they're roughly average. Chart through 2004 and article. If you dive into the details, there are some differences in the manner in which they're reversed, but the numbers don't lie.

-puk

http://www.centerforindividualfreedom.org/legal/9t h_circuit.htm

If you would check (I notice you didn't provide a source) you would see that the 9th leads in overturned cases in both percentage and number. They are just barely the busiest circuit, sure, but the second busiest circuit (5th) with only a 3% smaller caseload is less than one third as likely to be reviewed by the Supreme Court Source.

Here's pretty good article that discusses the rate at which 9th Circuit decisions are overturned.

9th Circuit article

Based on what little editorial comment is contained in the article, this is not the sort of decision that tends to get the 9th circuit in trouble (to the extent getting overturned equates getting in trouble). Instead, the 9th circuit tends to get in trouble when its judges follow what their conscience tells them rather than what binding precedent dictates. In this case, it appears that the court was following US Supreme Court precedent to the letter.

The numbers come from here. Studies from earlier years (1997-99) showed similar results.

I have seen a few people try to argue that in fact the reversal rate of the 9th circuit is just average because, once cases from the 9th get to the Supreme Court, they are reversed at about the same rate as those from other courts. But this sort of argument is obviously disingenuous. It just shows that the Supreme Court is applying the same standard across lower courts when deciding which cases to review. The number that matters is the number of cases reversed by the Supreme Court in comparison to the number of cases of cases heard by the 9th, and that is way above the average for other courts.

They need to be more MODERATE. It shouldn't be surprising that 3/4's of all appealed 9th circuit judments that get accepted are overturned.

And statisticts! Woo!

Your big, stinking lie was to omit the fact that 3/4 is the rate of overturning for all circuits, not just the 9th. So your 3/4th statistic is meaningless, and your implication that they make bad decisions due to liberal stacking is baseless.

Here's a
site that is clearly not a fan of the 9th Circuit court. According to their data, the 9th Circuit has had 18 of 24 cases overturned, or 75%. The rest of the circuits had a total of 41 of 56 cases overturned, or 73.2%. That's an average. Some circuits have an overturn rate of 100%.

Have a nice day.

The 9th Circuit technically has a lower reversal rate of reviewed cases than any other circuit (which is the number you hear thrown around to defend them) but that's simply because of the gross number of their cases the Supreme Court decides to review. When they're only reviewing 1-3 cases from each of the smaller circuits of course they're likely to have a 100% reversal rate with those.

Of all the cases overturned by the Supreme Court last term 57% (8 of 14) came from the 9th Circuit.