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58 Ohio St. L.J. 1465 (1997-1998)
The Ninth Circuit--Most Maligned Circuit in the Country--Fact or Fiction

handle is hein.journals/ohslj58 and id is 1477 raw text is: The Ninth Circuit-Most Maligned Circuit
in the Country-Fact or Fiction?
HON. JEROME FARRIS*
The Honorable Jerome Farris argues that the reason the Supreme Court
overturns such a high percentage of Ninth Circuit cases accepted for review is
not because the Circuit is too liberal.  Rather, Judge Farris emphasizes the
high volume of cases heard by the Ninth Circuit and its willingness to take on
controversial issues. He suggests that any objective observer would conclude
that the Ninth Circuit is functioning well and that the system is working
precisely as the Framers of the United States Constitution intended.
The shell game has survived over the centuries because there are always
those who are not merely willing, but delighted, to be deceived. If the game is
played often enough and mindlessly enough, one can come very close to
fooling all of the people all of the time.
The Ninth Circuit-most maligned circuit in the country-fact or fiction? It
is absolutely true that the United States Supreme Court accepted twenty-nine
cases from the Ninth Circuit for review in 1997 and reversed twenty-eight of
those decisions, affirming only one. The prior year, the Supreme Court
reviewed twelve Ninth Circuit cases and reversed ten. In 1995, the Supreme
Court reviewed fourteen Ninth Circuit decisions and reversed ten. During that
period, no other circuit had so many decisions reversed or so high a percentage
of reversals of cases accepted for review.1
According to these statistics, the Supreme Court reversed ninety-six percent
of the Ninth Circuit cases it reviewed in 1997, an all time high.2
In the year ending March 31, 1997, the Ninth Circuit decided 8701
matters. In the same period ending in 1996, the Ninth Circuit decided 7813
matters. In 1995, the Ninth Circuit decided 7955 matters. If one considers the
number of Ninth Circuit decisions reversed by the Supreme Court against the
total number of cases decided by the Ninth Circuit, an entirely different picture
emerges. Under this analysis, the Supreme Court let stand as final 99.7 percent
of the Ninth Circuit's 1996 cases. No circuit in history has decided so many
cases, and no circuit in history has had so low a percentage of cases reversed.
* Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
1 The Supreme Court decided a total of ninety-one cases in the 1996 term, reversing
sixty-five, affirming twenty-three, and otherwise disposing of three. See Thomas C.
Goldstein, Statistics for the Supreme Court's October Term 1996, 66 U.S.L.W. 3068 (U.S.
July 15, 1997).
2 All other circuits outside of the Ninth Circuit suffered a combined reversal rate of
sixty-one percent. See Bill Kusliak, Reversal Rate Keeps Getting Uglier, San Francisco
Recorder, July 2, 1997, at 1.

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