Stephen Reinhardt

Stephen Roy Reinhardt (born March 27, 1931) is a circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, with chambers in Los Angeles, California. He was appointed in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter.

Education and practice

Reinhardt graduated from University High School in Los Angeles. He enrolled in Pomona College and graduated three years later with a B.A. in Government in 1951. In 1954, he received an LL.B. from Yale Law School.

After law school, Reinhardt worked at the legal counsel’s office for the United States Air Force as a lieutenant in Washington, D.C.. Two years later, he clerked for district judge Luther Youngdahl, a former governor of Minnesota, in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He then entered private practice, working for the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers from 1958 until 1959 practicing entertainment law. After two years at O’Melveny, he began working at a small firm in Los Angeles that became Fogel, Julber, Reinhardt, Rothschild & Feldman specializing in labor law.

Reinhardt served as a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, California Advisory Committee from 1962 to 1974 and was its vice chairman from 1969 to 1974. He also served as member of the Democratic National Committee and as an unpaid advisor to former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley and California governor Jerry Brown. In 1975 he was appointed to the Los Angeles Police Commission, which he chaired from 1978 until his judicial confirmation in 1980.

Reinhardt continued his public service as Secretary of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Amateur Athletic Foundation.

Reinhardt administered the oath of office to current Los Angeles Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, on July 1, 2005.^[1]

Personal life

Reinhardt's mother divorced his father and married movie director Gottfried Reinhardt, the son of director Max Reinhardt. Stephen Reinhardt is married to Ramona Ripston, who was Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California^[2] until her February 2011 retirement. Reinhardt has three children.

Judicial career

Reinhardt is known as one of the most liberal judges on the courts of appeals. He is also one of the most-reversed judges before the Supreme Court.^[3] Examples of opinions he wrote for the Ninth Circuit that were reversed are:

• Safeco Insurance Co. of America v. Burr, 127 S.Ct. 2201 (2007)
• Gonzales v. Carhart, 127 S.Ct. 1610 (2007)
• Ayers v. Belmontes, 127 S.Ct. 469 (2006)
• Garcetti v. Ceballos, 126 S.Ct. 1951 (2006)
• Texaco Inc. v. Dagher, 547 U.S. 1 (2006)
• Pliler v. Ford, 542 U.S. 225 (2002)
• Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Echazabal, 536 U.S. 73 (2002)
• United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S. 266 (2002)
• Major League Baseball Players Ass'n v. Garvey, 532 U.S. 504 (2001)
• Albertson's, Inc. v. Kirkingburg, 527 U.S. 555 (1999)
• Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997)
• Lambert v. Wicklund, 520 U.S. 292 (1997)
• United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456 (1997)
• I.N.S. v. Abudu, 485 U.S. 94 (1988)
• Heckler v. Lopez, 463 U.S. 1328 (1983)

In 2003, Reinhardt admitted that he "was a liberal from a very young age. I think I was born that way."^[4] However, he does not believe that a Supreme Court reversal means that his opinion is "wrong" or that he "didn't follow the law." "The Supreme Court changes the law regularly. And this Supreme Court - which is the most activist Court there has ever been - is constantly changing the law. So if you really are faithful to the law, you're likely to get reversed because it [the Court] has cut back on rights."^[4]

Reinhardt's former clerk, Cornell law professor Michael Dorf said that when Reinhardt "believes himself clearly bound by Supreme Court precedent with which he disagrees, he states his disagreement but follows the precedent." Dorf accounts for Reinhardt's reversal rate by stating that "Reinhardt resolves cases under existing precedent as he believes those precedents should be read, without regard to whether five or more Justices of the Supreme Court are likely to reverse him."^[5]

The following are some of his more notable judicial opinions:

• Cardoza-Fonseca v. U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 767 F.2d 1448 (9th Cir. 1985). The INS had conflated two different routes for seeking asylum and had improperly rejected an application made under one route based on the requirements of the second. This decision was upheld by the Supreme Court.
• Coleman v. Risley, 839 F.2d 434 (9th Cir. 1988). Standard to obtain asylum.
• Yniguez v. Arizonans for Official English, 939 F.2d 727 (9th Cir. 1991), adopted en banc, 69 F.3d 920 (9th Cir 1995). The English-only provision in the Arizona constitution was overly broad and violated the First Amendment right of free speech. This decision was vacated by the Supreme Court as moot because plaintiff Yniguez had voluntarily left the employment of the State of Arizona the day after the appeal was filed. 530 US 43. Justice Ginsburg's unanimous opinion for the Court also took a swipe at the Ninth Circuit for failing to certify this question to the state courts, holding that "A more cautious approach was in order. In addition, footnote 11 of Justice Ginsburg's decision chides the Ninth Circuit for failing to recognize that state courts are not bound by decisions of federal courts (except the Supreme Court), even on questions of federal law.
• Sanders v. Ratelle, 21 F.3d 1446 (9th Cir. 1994). The Sixth Amendment right to counsel can be infringed if counsel has a conflict of interest, even if the defendant has waived the conflict.
• Compassion in Dying v. Washington, 79 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 1996) (en banc). A statute prohibiting doctors from prescribing life-ending medication for the terminally ill violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in Washington v. Glucksberg (1997).
• Ma v. Reno, 208 F.3d 815 (9th Cir. 2000). An alien cannot be held indefinitely in detention in the absence of a repatriation agreement with his or her country of origin.
• Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002). The right to bear arms is a collective right, not an individual right. This ruling was overruled by the Supreme Court in D.C. v. Heller (2008).
• United States of America v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds of Shark Fins (9th Cir. 2008) [1]. Forfeiture of the shark fins was denied on the grounds that, although according to the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000 any shark fins found aboard a fishing vessel without a corresponding shark carcass may be deemed the product of illegal harvesting, the vessel from which the fins were seized was not in fact a fishing vessel within the meaning of the act. The fins had been harvested by, and bought from, other vessels.
• In The Matter of Brad Levenson (2009) [2]. In his role as Chair of the Ninth Circuit’s Standing Committee on Federal Public Defenders, Reinhardt ruled that the application of the Defense of Marriage Act in denying health insurance benefits to Levenson's same-sex spouse violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Awards

Reinhardt has received the following awards:

• 1987 Appellate Judge of the Year by the California Trial Lawyers Association.
• 1993 St. Thomas More Medallion Award by Loyola Law School.
• 1993 Donald Wright Award by the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
• 1995 Appellate Justice of the Year by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles.
• 1998 Champion of Justice: Legal Award by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
• 2004 Award for Judicial Excellence by the Idaho Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
• 2004 Meritorious Service Award by the University of Oregon Law School.^[6]

References