10-09-2003, 09:14 PM
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#13 (permalink)
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Winner
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I based it on what I have read. But I did find this real quick to back me up: http://www.sacbee.com/content/politi...-8373894c.html
I'll post an excerpt that's relevant to the topic
Quote:
But the 9th Circuit "is by no means dominated by liberals," says Jesse Choper, a UC Berkeley constitutional authority.
The circuit is large enough that the panel of judges deciding any case may be quite conservative, he says; so the outcome may well depend on which three or 11 judges are randomly assigned.
It's politics but, cautions Choper, "not politics in the usual style. It is ideological leaning in the judicial style," which means in practice that a judge may interpret individual or government rights expansively or narrowly.
"Ideology is simply a descriptive word which indicates your values," Choper says.
"Ideology is part of the appointments game," says Vikram Amar, a constitutional expert at Hastings College of the Law. "That's what the Constitution sets up."
But the Constitution also gives federal judges life tenure, "so that political ideology is just the beginning, not the end, of the judge's story," Amar says.
The circuit's history is replete with examples of judges who have written opinions defying their presumed politics.
For example, the Pledge of Allegiance decision was written by Senior 9th Circuit Judge Alfred Goodwin of Pasadena, a judicial middle-of-the-roader appointed by former President Richard Nixon.
"That's the way he saw the Supreme Court's (precedents), and he called it as he saw it," Choper says.
Amar says that various presidents have placed different degrees of emphasis on their appointees' ideology.
He says George W. Bush appointees "so far have been more uniformly conservative than the Carter or Clinton appointees are uniformly liberal."
Choper calls the current Supreme Court conservative. It has seven justices appointed by Republican presidents and two appointed by Democrats.
The 9th Circuit has a reputation as the one the Supreme Court most often reverses.
In most years, the circuit's reversal rate is in line with the national average.
But there's a basis for the reputation.
Some of the circuit's most prominent decisions -- on medical marijuana, assisted suicide and three-strikes sentencing, for example -- have been overturned.
Adding to the circuit's renegade image, says Amar, the Supreme Court more often is unanimous when it reverses the 9th Circuit than when it reverses other courts.
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