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37 Loy. L. A. L. Rev. 1 (2003-2004)
The Myth of the Liberal Ninth Circuit

handle is hein.journals/lla37 and id is 41 raw text is: THE MYTH OF THE LIBERAL NINTH CIRCUIT Erwin Chemerinsky* The popular image of the Ninth Circuit, often expressed in the news media, is that it is a far left court that is reversed more often than any other circuit in the country.' This is simply wrong. In the October 2002 Term, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court in 2 seventy-four percent of all of the cases it decided. The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in seventy-five percent of the cases coming from that court.3 The year before, during the October 2001 Term, the statistics were almost identical: the Supreme Court reversed the lower courts seventy-five percent of the time and the Ninth Circuit was reversed seventy-six percent of the time.4 Among all federal circuits, the Ninth Circuit is almost exactly at the median among circuits in reversal rates. During the October 2002 Term, some of the Supreme Court's most important decisions affirmed the Ninth Circuit. For instance, in Brown v. Legal Foundation of Washington,5 the Supreme Court * Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics, and Political Science, University of Southern California. I want to thank Diidri Wells and Annika Martin for their excellent research assistance. It should be disclosed that I was co-counsel before the Ninth Circuit in some of the cases discussed in this article, including Lockyer v. Andrade, 123 S. Ct. 1166 (2003), Coalition of Clergy v. Bush, 310 F.3d 1153 (9th Cir. 2002), and Southwest Voter Registration Educ. Project v. Shelley, No. 03-56498, 2003 WL 22175955 (9th Cir. Sept. 23, 2003). 1. See, e.g., Charlotte Allen, Pledge of Allegiance; Under God: An 'Injury' with Almost No Victims, L.A. TIMES, Oct. 5, 2003, at M3 (The 9th Circuit is famous for its loopy, ultra-liberal rulings that run against the grain of other federal courts and are often overturned by the Supreme Court.). 2. See Marcia Coyle, 2002-2003 Term: Supreme Court Review, NAT'L L.J., Aug. 4, 2003, at S 1. 3. See id 4. See Marcia Coyle, 2001-2002 Term: Supreme Court Review, NAT'L L.J., Aug. 5, 2002, at C1. 5. 123 S. Ct. 1406 (2003).

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