Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Federal Appellate Courts

The New York Times has a lengthy article today on how Trump has turned the Federal appellate courts into a bulwark for his policies.

Frankly, I distrust the Federal appellate courts, and have done so for a long time. They often seem to base their opinions on their personal political ideology than the law.

A long time ago, I had some tangential involvment in Federal appellate cases. As I got to know the practitioners in that field, they told me that they could guess the outcome of their cases depending on who the three judges were that were assigned to the panel to hear their cases. I had some free time (and access to a one of the online legal services), so I looked into it.

Damned if they weren't right.

Federal appellate panels have three judges on them. If you were appealing a civil rights violation case in that particular circuit, if you got two or more conservtive judges, you lost. If you got two or more liberal judges, you didn't necessarilly win, but you had a shot at it. It was so bad and so predictable that lawyers whose cases drew three conservative judges would advise their clients that it was fruitless to appear for oral arguments.

It was almost funny, in a tragic-comic sense. If the plaintiff lost at trial, or had a low award, the judges, both liberal and conservative, would respect the decision of the jury. But if the plaintiff won big, the conservative judges would write all sorts of mealy-mouthed words about how the jury was the finder-of-fact, but then come up with rationales for why they were going to shitcan the jury's verdict.

What it did, for me, was color my view of the Federal bench. And I went down a different road.

4 comments:

MarkS said...

This is obviously the reason behind the attempted takeover of the courts (state and federal)by the republicans. This , and their media work on the principal of a volleyball team: the job of the back row is to deliver the ball to the front row, whose job is to score on the opposition.

MarkS said...

Sorry, got wrong-footed there.

Comrade Misfit said...

Mark, I deleted the duplicate post. No worries.

Tod Germanica said...

Another reason to reform the courts by providing for 19 term-limited supreme court justices and 250 more lower level judges. The only cure for what ails us is more democracy.