Nice article from Slate on the 9th Circuit.
"I had a law school professor who referred to California law as "hot tub law"; part of the disdain for the 9th surely derives from national skepticism of all things Left Coast."
And:
"Now let's look at how often the Supreme Court decides that the 9th got it wrong. Last term, the Supreme Court's reversal rate for 9th Circuit cases was 90.5 percent. Yikes—that's huge! But wait, for on-the-merits cases, the Supremes reversed the 3rd and 5th Circuits all of the time last term. Cases from state appellate courts fared no better: They also had a 100 percent reversal rate. Overall, this past term the Supreme Court reversed 75.3 percent of the cases they considered on their merits. The pattern holds true for the 2004 and 2005 terms as well, when the Supremes had overall reversal rates of 76.8 percent and 75.6 percent, respectively."
2 comments:
Interesting article. One pertinent point I didn't see was how many of the appeals did the Supreme Court decline to hear. Not being a lawyer, I would presume that an appeal has to have some merit to make it there.
Wikipedia reports that the Supreme Court receives approximately 7500 petitions for certiorari (petitions to hear an appeal). The Court will ultimately grant approximately 80 to 100 of these petitions, although as I note below the number of cases taken by the USSC have decreased.
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