Talk:United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

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United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has had a peer review by Wikipedia editors which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

Contents 1 Example deletion 2 Most overturned circuit? 3 Appointer information cannot be right 4 Appointer information is definitely right 5 How many judges? 6 Rewrite 7 Over wikified 8 Confusing treatment of Ninth Circuit split proposals 9 why does clinton has so many appointees? 10 table 11 Frequent reversals 12 Consistency of decisions 13 Time travel?

[edit] Example deletion

feel free to add more examples; do -not- delete valid information

Just because information is valid does not mean it should appear in an article. The Ninth Circuit has been around for a long time, listing a single case from June 2002 and implying that it is the only controversial case or somehow demonstrative of anything at all does not illustrate good editorial practice. It dates the article horribly. Boiling down the Ninth Circuit to a single controversial case is deceptive and leads to the perception (POV) that they generate cases likely to be overturned, that retired judges are more often involved in those cases, etc. I'm working on finding a longer list of significant cases and I will not be listing that case unless it's clear that it's one of the most significant ones since the court's inception. Wikipedia is not about reporting current events. Daniel Quinlan 02:46, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

Please do read the policy, Daniel:

I've read the policy. I think it's actually a bit incomplete in its admonishment of turning articles into news reports since it doesn't address the problem of excessive present-day current events in articles. Daniel Quinlan 15:15, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not: A news report. Wikipedia should not offer news reports on breaking stories. However, creating encyclopedia articles on topics currently in the news is an excellent idea. See current events for some examples. ...When updating articles with recent news, authors should use the past-tense in such a way that the news will still make sense when read years from now. [emph. mine]

This, and you, are addressing something completely different than my objection. I was not objecting to writing in present tense. Daniel Quinlan 15:15, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

What this policy refers to is articles of the type "On Monday, President Bush announced that he will immediately withdraw all troops from Iraq." Articles should be written in an encyclopedic manner, that is, in such a fashion that the information within them continues to make sense without requiring frequent minor updates. That's also why we have redirects such as As of 2003 in place which allow us to quickly correct information which is no longer up to date (by checking "What links here" on that redirect in 2004). Wikipedia was excellent in integrating up to date information during the Sep. 11 attacks (even though it was still a very small project then) and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in real-time. Aside from that, the court decision in question is hardly a matter of up-to-the-minute news, being made in 2002.

I agree with you, of course, that the article should include many of the court's historical cases. However, articles often start with just a fraction of the information about the subject -- that does not mean that this information should be removed until the rest of the information is added. Articles do not need to be complete at any given point in time (and in fact probably never are). See also Wikipedia:Perfect stub article, which goes so far to suggest starting a stub article provocatively.—Eloquence 02:56, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

I think you missed my point, but I'll concede that you've made yours in the article. Daniel Quinlan 15:15, Oct 24, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Most overturned circuit?

The Ninth Circuit is the most overturned appeals court in the United States.. In total numbers, that is correct. In terms or percentages of cases which are heard by the US Supreme Court, that is not correct. A larger percentage of cases is overturned from other courts than from the Ninth. It's only that more cases from the Ninth get moved up to the Supreme Court that it has so many cases overturned. And in the latest term, only one more than the next-overturned, which one it is, I don't recall right now. RickK 06:19, 26 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yes and no. First, more cases are heard from the Ninth Court in general. Many fewer are heard from other courts, so it is easy for another court to bat a high percentage if only a few cases are being heard. I believe the speculation is that the Supreme Court keeps a much closer eye on the Ninth Circuit than other courts. If you also look at the last 5 or 10 years, the statistics are also much clearer that the Ninth Circuit is the most overturned. By way of analogy, it's like the Yankees. They don't win the World Series every year, but they are the best team this last decade. Sure, if you only look at a single year or two, someone else might have a higher percentage, but the gap widens over time.

Nevertheless, let's include some good statistics! Per-decade might be about right, I think. Daniel Quinlan 06:44, Oct 26, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Appointer information cannot be right

The article says, speaking of judges on the court in 2001:

18 were appointed by Democrat Presidents (4 by Jimmy Carter and 14 by Bill Clinton) and 7 were appointed by Republican Presidents (3 by Ronald Reagan, 4 by the George H. W. Bush)

It then goes on to say that a 2002 opinion for the majority was written by a Nixon appointee. Unless Nixon appointed someone to the court between 2001 and 2002, either he was not a Nixon appointee, or the above list of who appointed how many judges is wrong. --Delirium 23:24, Nov 6, 2003 (UTC)

Verified that Goodwin was appointed by Nixon ([1]). The other info should probably be commented out until someone can find a place to re-check the facts and alter it to be accurate. However I won't edit the page while it's protected; if someone could track down a disinterested admin to do it that would be great. - Hephaestos 23:32, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Appointer information is definitely right

I double-checked the information during my last edit spurt on this article. Goodwin is an inactive (read: semi-retired) judge. The 18/7 figure is for active judges who hear the vast majority of cases. I'll make a note in the article if there already isn't one. Daniel Quinlan 23:36, Nov 6, 2003 (UTC)

Excellent! Thanks. - Hephaestos 23:55, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] How many judges?

The first paragraph claims the court has 24 judges. The second claims it has 27. Which is correct? — (unsigned contribution by 62.253.130.205 on August 19, 2004

This issue was cleaned up by Postdlf on that same August 19. The circuit has 28 permanent judgeships. I'd like to do some research confirming this, but there appear to be 25 judges at the moment. — DLJessup 20:55, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rewrite

Frustrated by the article as it was, I rewrote it in anticipation of adding the charts and other info standard to courts of appeals pages. I welcome your feedback. --Saucy Intruder 20:16, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think it is beginning to look much better after your edits. --Coolcaesar 22:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Over wikified

Please can we re-wikify the article so that we don't have so many blind links. Opinions please --Chazz88 17:04, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Red links are not always bad. They automatically initiate an article request that ends up on WP:AR1 or WP:AR2 after one or two years, respectively. (At least, if I understand the process.) Virtually nothing remains red-linked longer than 18 months, but if the links are removed, no one will know where to put the links when the article is finally created. I agree that it looks bad to have a lot of red links, but the solution isn't to remove the red links -- it's to create articles on those subjects!--chris.lawson 17:13, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing treatment of Ninth Circuit split proposals

Is there any actual support for this claim?

This bill was reintroduced in the 109th Congress as the Ninth Circuit Judgeship and Reorganization Act of 2005, H.R. 211, co-sponsored by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the same Republican Congressmen who had sponsored the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judgeship and Reorganization Act of 2003. This proposal would substantially align the states within each new circuit along political lines. Each state proposed as part of the new Ninth and Thirteenth Circuits (except for Alaska) cast its electoral votes for Democrat John F. Kerry in 2004, while each state proposed as part of the new Twelfth Circuit cast its electoral votes for Republican George W. Bush in 2004.

The previously referenced bill (the one that was apparently "reintroduced") isn't even close to this claim. Either it's been radically rewritten (which should be acknowledged as a separate bullet point) or the writer has no idea which states voted which way.

--69.140.81.84 01:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

In all fairness to the author of the claim, H.R. 211 does split the Ninth Circuit as described. However, what the author doesn't acknowledge is that the bill introduced immediately after H.R. 211 is H.R. 212, which would split the Ninth Circuit into two circuits, each with partisan balance in its allocation of states. Moreover, there are several additional bills in the current Congress, each of which proposes some way to split the Ninth Circuit: H.R. 3125, S. 1296, S. 1301, S. 1845.

— DLJessup (talk) 04:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] why does clinton has so many appointees?

?--Capsela 15:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• The president gets to appoint judges to fill vacancies created when old judges retire (just like the Supreme Court). Clinton has many appointees because many 9th Circuit judges retired while Clinton was president. Some federal judges make a point of retiring during the administration of a president who shares their ideology, so that they will likely be replaced by a judge with similar views. BD2412 T 15:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• Some ten seats were created in 1978, during the Carter administration. (This is why Carter, who had only a single term, appointed 15 judges while Reagan only appointed 10 in his two terms.) Many of Carter's appointees then left office during the Clinton administration. (Note that this may not necessarily indicate intent on the Carter judges' part: the judges seem to have left the bench after about 18 years on average, and 18 years is a decent run for a federal judge.) — DLJessup (talk) 15:58, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] table

The table listed the population in thousands. When I see 54,000 thousands it isn't exactly clear. So I added three 0s to the end of all of them and just put it as the real number. ABart26 04:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Frequent reversals

While advocates of splitting the Ninth Circuit frequently point to the court's frequent reversal rate, they sometimes mean that the Supreme Court must disproportionately intervene in cases where the Ninth Circuit has sided with an unpopular group. I added the description of Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001), to show that in some cases where the Supreme Court reverses the Ninth Circuit, the Court has done so where the Ninth Circuit has sided with the government. ---Axios023 06:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Update: I clarified what I wrote for greater precision. ---Axios023 04:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consistency of decisions

I deleted a reference to a site maintained by a pro se litigant before the court as evidence of the proposition that the court's unpublished decisions conflict with its published decisions. That site does not espouse a neutral point of view. ---Axios023 03:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur. --Coolcaesar 07:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time travel?

Someone writing in 2003 refuted someone's statement in 2006? Wow. When did we discover this technology? 129.171.233.29 14:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)