{"id":702,"date":"2011-02-03T09:41:13","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T14:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=702"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:58:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:58:31","slug":"ninth-circuit-suffers-decade-of-reversal-judge-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/02\/03\/ninth-circuit-suffers-decade-of-reversal-judge-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Ninth Circuit Suffers \u201cDecade of Reversal,\u201d Judge Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"color: #505050\"><em>Michael Stephan<\/em><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">The\u00a0<em>Lewis &amp; Clark Law Review<\/em>\u00a0recently published\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110208013700\/http:\/\/www.lclark.edu\/live\/files\/7239-lcb144art10oscannlainpdf\" target=\"_blank\">an essay by Judge Diarmuid F. O\u2019Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit<\/a>.\u00a0 The essay discusses the reversal rate of Ninth Circuit cases at the Supreme Court over the past decade.\u00a0 Judge O\u2019Scannlain,\u00a0<a style=\"font-style: inherit;color: #3f6dcf\" href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110208013700\/http:\/\/lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=3125&amp;context=bclr\" target=\"_blank\">who is considered strongly conservative by some<\/a>, concludes that \u201cthe Ninth Circuit\u2019s record in the Supreme Court has been strikingly poor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Judge O\u2019Scannlain points out that, in the last ten years, the Ninth Circuit was reversed or vacated in 81% of its cases that the Supreme Court heard.\u00a0\u00a0 The other twelve circuits had a combined reversal rate of only 71%.\u00a0 These figures, Judge O\u2019Scannlain explains, suggest that the Ninth Circuit\u2019s reversal rate is especially high.<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">The essay, titled\u00a0<em>A Decade of Reversal: The Ninth Circuit\u2019s Record in the Supreme Court Since October Term 2000<\/em>, also notes that nearly half of the reversed Ninth Circuit cases were decided by a unanimous Supreme Court (with fifteen of those being summary reversals).\u00a0 The Ninth Circuit\u2019s poor record is due in part, says Judge O\u2019Scannlain, to the court\u2019s regular \u201cfailure to heed the plain text of AEDPA\u201d\u2014the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act.\u00a0 And the addition of Justice Sotomayor to the SCOTUS bench \u201chas not affected the Ninth Circuit\u2019s reversal rate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #505050\">Judge O\u2019Scannlain\u2019s brief essay is worth a read for those interested in ostensibly the most progressive circuit. \u00a0The essay invites several interesting questions.\u00a0 Is the Ninth Circuit\u2019s record really \u201cstrikingly poor\u201d if the court\u2019s reversal rate is only 10% above average?\u00a0 Is the high reversal rate merely the product of a remarkably conservative Supreme Court?\u00a0 And will the arrival of Justice Kagan to the Court help the Ninth\u2019s record?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Stephan\u00a0 The\u00a0Lewis &amp; Clark Law Review\u00a0recently published\u00a0an essay by Judge Diarmuid F. O\u2019Scannlain of the Ninth Circuit.\u00a0 The essay [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-bk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}