Posted on 03/10/2003 11:19:02 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Legislation has been introduced in Congress to break up the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – known as the federal panel with the most left-leaning decisions and which often is overturned by the Supreme Court.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced S. 562 last week. The bill would divide the 28-judge court into two, keeping California and Nevada in the 9th Circuit and creating a 12th Circuit made up of Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington, as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
A companion bill in the House was introduced Feb. 27 by Rep. Michael Simpson, R-Idaho. According to a report in the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Simpson's bill differs from Murkowski's by putting Arizona in the Denver-based 10th Circuit.
The 9th Circuit Court's most recent controversial decision came Feb. 28 when the court rejected the Bush administration's request to reconsider its previous ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance – due to the phrase "under God" – is unconstitutional in public schools.
Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder said in a speech last year that the circuit was doing well because "[t]here are no moves to divide it, knock on wood," reports the Metropolitan News-Enterprise.
In condemning the Pledge decision on the Senate floor last week, Murkowski said, "The recent history of the 9th Circuit suggests a judicial activism that is close to the fringe of legal reasoning."
She noted that during the 1990s, the Supreme Court overturned almost 90 percent of the 9th Circuit cases it reviewed: "In 1997, 27 of the 28 cases brought to the Supreme Court were reversed – two-thirds by a unanimous vote."
Defenders of the Ninth Circuit say it has a reversal rate that is comparable to other circuits. Ninth Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas, from Montana, told a congressional panel last year that in the 1996-97 court term – the one the critics usually cite – five of the other circuits had all of their decisions reversed, reports the Metropolitan News-Enterprise.
Republican lawmakers from the states proposed to be split off have been trying to divide the circuit for years. Murkowski's father, now-Gov. Frank Murkowski, introduced a bill to do so three times and was a co-sponsor in other years.
Because the court's size is "the problem".
The Ninth Circuit is by far the largest of the circuits, and is more than double the national average with respect to number of court of appeals judges, case filings, population, and geographic area. Our caseload has reached a record 11,421 filings for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2002, an increase of over 20 percent in two years; compare that with an average of 4,796 for all other circuits. (Actually we hit 12,209 filings for calendar year 2002). The next busiest circuit is not even close -- the Fifth Circuit at 8,784 filings in the same period. Our output as a court is similarly enormous. In the same period, over 5,000 cases were terminated on the merits in the Ninth Circuit; compare this to an average of 2,312 for all other circuits. During that time we published 837 precedential opinions; the sheer volume of decisions makes it difficult, for us as judges, just to stay abreast of current developments in our own law, never mind developments in other circuits or in academia. Essentially, we are losing the ability to keep track of our own precedents.
I like your plan. :oD
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