No Surprise Here

that the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has been poisoned by partisanship.

Several years ago, I did an informal study of one of the Federal circuit courts of appeals. I found that for a certain type of civil rights action, I could predict the outcome of the appeal close to 98% (or better) of the time in one direction: If Republican judges were in the majority on the 3-judge panel, the individual lost. If there was a majority of Democrats, the individual had a chance, but still sometimes lost.

I started to expand that study to all circuits; I didn't come close to completing the study, but my impression was that the result was repeatable. If I remember correctly, there was at least one circuit were an individual pressing that sort of civil rights complaint had zero chance of surviving an appeal.

The Republican appellate judges struck me as being uniformly pro-business, pro-police and hostile to the rights of individuals. When a court, or a series of courts, decide their cases based solely on ideological grounds, then there is no justice.