[aristeides]

Why should Arizona be in there with Alaska, when it could be with New Mexico and Texas?

Because you'd be creating a legal mess by putting lots of states in different circuits. For example, suddenly making Arizona subject to all Fifth Circuit precedents is a bad idea. It's much more orderly to have all the states in a new circuit subject to the same old precedents, even if the precedents are Ninth Circus precedents.

By the way, Lisa Murkowski's maiden speech in the Senate was a call for breaking up the Ninth Circuit. She's the new Republican senator from Alaska.

[pogo101]

I disagree that it'd be a legal mess. It would be common knowledge in Arizona that, prior to X date, it was in the 9th Circuit. Look, this isn't really even a debatable point, in my view: the fact that a state's lawyers have to learn, on their first day of practice, that there is this minor issue with the Circuit membership of their state, isn't a "legal mess."

[only1percent]

Because you'd be creating a legal mess by putting lots of states in different circuits.

Yup. The split of the old 5th into the new 5th and the 11th worked out very well, because the new 11th inherited all old 5th circuit precedents (and they're all still good law unless they've been reversed by the 11th).

There are definitely some problems in allocating judges because the "home states" don't really correspond to the caseload -- Californians are actually underrepresented relative to the caseload. (Idaho doesn't generate a lot of criminal appeals...)