The 9th Circuit is a Rogue Court and it is time to create the 12th Circuit!
The Ninth Circuit court recently upheld the lower courts appeal and Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) of President Trump’s Executive Order pausing immigration from 7 countries of concern. Many in our Press are cheering this decision while the majority of Americans support President Trump’s order.
It’s no secret that the Ninth Circuit is one of the most liberal and left-leaning in the nation. It is the circuit that is most referenced when politicians talk about “activist judges”, or judges that rather than interpreting the written law instead seek to make political statements or set political precedents.
So is the Ninth Circuit mainstream when it comes to American values? One test is to compare this Circuit’s decisions and test them against what is truly more representative and held as sacred in the halls of American history, the United States Supreme Court.
Fortunately the American Bar Association has studied this intensely and back in 2010 conducted a review of the different Circuits and their decisions. In a paper written by Roy E. Hofer entitled, “Supreme Court Reversal Rates: Evaluating the Federal Court of Appeals”, there are some clear indications that the Ninth Circuits is in fact a “rogue court”.
Looking at the data below in “table 3”, you can see that the Ninth Circuit has more cases taken to the Supreme Court than any other circuit, partly due to it’s heavy population and numerous states. In this table, 80% of court cases from 1999–2008 have been overturned.
In fact when compared to all of the other circuits, save for the Federal DC Circuit it is far above the median.
This clearly indicates that the court is out of lockstep with the Supreme Court and our most sacred and revered institution. Further more as polls show, most Americans broadly support this Executive Order decision as well as many other decisions made by the US Supreme Court.
Furthermore, the make-up of the Ninth Circuit district encompasses 9 states. When accounting for the population of the states it represents, it is clear that it covers far too much US Territory and represents far too many people within its jurisdiction.
The table below shows that the Ninth Circuit is almost twice as large as the next largest district, the Fifth, that only covers 3 states and 1 territory.
Clearly, the Ninth Circuit is too large and due to its Rogue status, also is unquestionably failing its population. The question truly should be, is the Ninth Circuit representing the people it serves any more? Is it time for a Twelfth Circuit that encompasses several Mountain states to form separately from the oppressive liberal court? This writer thinks so.
If you liked this story, please read my other Story about President Trump’s Executive Order: https://medium.com/@knp80n/a-little-truth-about-president-trumps-immigration-executive-order-c78402a5a8bd#.ebu63l6zb
References
(1) “Supreme Court Reversal Rates: Evaluating the Federal Court of Appeals” by Roy E. Hofer. http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/intelprop/magazine/LandslideJan2010_Hofer.authcheckdam.pdf
(2) State Population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
(3) Federal Districts: http://www.aipla.org/committees/committee_pages/Trademark-Litigation/Pages/Federal-Circuit-Tables.aspx
