What Is Nine Divided by Two?

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals covers most of the western United States, Hawaii, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Alaska. It has 25 active judges and 4 openings – i.e. 29 in total. Of these 25 now active judges 18 were appointed by Democratic presidents including 7 having been appointed by Barack Hussein Obama. So it should come as no surprise that the 9th circuit is a very liberal circuit.  It has been referred to as “The 9th Circuit Court of Schlemiels” as well as “The 9th Circus Court of Appeals”, as from 2010-2015, 79% of its reviewed decisions were reversed by U.S. Supreme Court.

As I am sure many of you are aware that it was the 9th Circuit that ruled against President Trump’s executive order on immigration – apparently because of things he said as a candidate!?

It is the Circuit Court for 20% of the U.S. population, and is by far the largest Circuit Court in the U.S. For the year ending on 3/31/2016 almost 12,000 cases were filed in the 9th circuit, which is 4000 more than the next highest circuit. Is it too large? Many think so, as efforts to split the 9th circuit go back to 1941. In 2007 Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, who was previously a sitting judge on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, testified that it was too large and unwieldy, and should be split. Recently the two Senators from Arizona (McCain & Flake) are again on a mission to split up the 9th, and add a 12th Circuit Court, because it takes too long for a case to be heard and then decided by the 9th Circuit – it typically takes 15 months to hand down a decision.

How would this proposal affect those of us who live in California? Actually, it would not make too much difference to us, since if the 9th Circuit were to be split, both the Northern and the Southern California districts would remain in the 9th Circuit, and probably remain liberal. What would be more prudent to do is to appoint 4 conservative judges to fill the 4 present vacancies in the 9th Circuit, and to do it A.S.A.P.

 

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