Federal Courts. Review by Circuit Courts of Appeals. Doctrine That Decisions of Territorial Courts upon Matters of Local Law Should Not Be Disturbed Unless "Inescapably Wrong" Reaffirmed

1940 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 1048 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Federal Courts ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
Local Law ◽  
Circuit Courts

scholarly journals Of Whites and men: How gender and race impact authorship of published and unpublished opinions in the US courts of appeals

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316801876286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth A. Tillman ◽  
Rachael K. Hinkle
Keyword(s):  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
Stare Decisis ◽  
Disadvantaged Groups ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Supreme Court ◽  
Empirical Tests ◽  
Circuit Courts

While authorship assignment has been studied extensively in the US Supreme Court, relatively little is known about such decisions in the intermediate federal courts. Moreover, what we know about circuit courts relates only to published opinions (those which constitute precedent under the doctrine of stare decisis and, thus, influence policy). Little is known about authorship of less influential unpublished opinions. Distinguishing between the costs, benefits, and risks inherent in authoring published versus unpublished opinions, we develop and test theoretical expectations about how demographic characteristics of opinion assignors and assignees influence authorship across opinion type. We conduct empirical tests using an exhaustive original dataset containing all authored dispositive circuit panel opinions issued in 2012. The results reveal that White and male judges are more likely to assign White and male judges to write published opinions and less likely to assign them to write unpublished opinions. The substantive sizes of the discrepancies are somewhat modest, but our results indicate that judges from historically disadvantaged groups have fewer opportunities to shape policy and they shoulder a disproportionately larger share of the routine chore of resolving individual cases.

scholarly journals Panel Assignment in the Federal Courts of Appeals

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marin K Levy
Keyword(s):  
Common Knowledge ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Senior Administrators ◽  
Judicial Administration ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
Random Draw ◽  
Circuit Courts

103 Cornell L. Rev. 65 (2017)It is common knowledge that the federal courts of appeals typically hear cases in panels of three judges and that the composition of the panel can have significant consequences for case outcomes and for legal doctrine more generally. Yet neither legal scholars nor social scientists have focused on the question of how judges are selected for their panels. Instead, a substantial body of scholarship simply assumes that panel assignment is random. This Article provides what, up until this point, has been a missing account of panel assignment. Drawing on a multiyear qualitative study of five circuit courts, including in-depth interviews with thirty-five judges and senior administrators, I show that strictly random selection is a myth, and an improbable one at that—in many instances, it would have been impossible as a practical matter for the courts studied here to create their panels by random draw. Although the courts generally tried to “mix up” the judges, the chief judges and clerks responsible for setting the calendar also took into account various other factors, from collegiality to efficiency-based considerations. Notably, those factors differed from one court to the next; no two courts approached the challenge of panel assignment in precisely the same way. These findings pose an important challenge to the widespread assumption of panel randomness and reveal key normative questions that have been largely ignored in the literature. Although randomness is regarded as the default selection method across much of judicial administration, there is little exposition of why it is valuable. What, exactly, is desirable about having judges brought together randomly in the first place? What, if anything, is problematic about nonrandom methods of selection? This Article sets out to clarify both the costs and benefits of randomness, arguing that there can be valid reasons to depart from it. As such, it provides a framework for assessing different panel assignment practices and the myriad other court practices that rely, to some extent, on randomness.

Courtroom Proceedings in U.S. Federal Courts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy R. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Federal District ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
District Courts ◽  
Open Court ◽  
Federal Circuit ◽  
Federal District Courts ◽  
Circuit Courts ◽  
The U.S

This article discusses courtroom proceedings in U.S. federal courts. It begins by examining how federal district courts conduct trials. To make clear how these proceedings run it compares what really happens in most trials compared to how Hollywood portrays trials. In addition, it considers several key rights associated with trial proceedings. From there, it considers how federal circuit courts conduct business in open court. A key aspect of this section is how circuit proceedings differ across the country because each circuit has different rules governing arguments. Finally, it assesses the oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court as well as how these proceedings may affect the decisions justices make. In each section it provides a descriptive overview of the processes and then discusses current research and direction for future analyses.

scholarly journals "Downright Indifference": Examining Unpublished Decisions in the Federal Courts of Appeals

2020 ◽  
pp. 533 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merritt McAlister
Keyword(s):  
Justice System ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
Minimum Standards ◽  
Rubber Stamp ◽  
Second Tier ◽  
First Time

Nearly 90 percent of the work of the federal courts of appeals looks nothing like the opinions law students read in casebooks. Over the last fifty years, the so-called “unpublished decision” has overtaken the federal appellate courts in response to a caseload volume “crisis.” These are often short, perfunctory decisions that make no law; they are, one federal judge said, “not safe for human consumption.” The creation of the inferior unpublished decision also has created an inferior track of appellate justice for a class of appellants: indigent litigants. The federal appellate courts routinely shunt indigent appeals to a second-tier appellate process in which judicial staff attorneys resolve appeals without oral argument or meaningful judicial oversight. For the system’s most vulnerable participants, the promise of an appeal as of right often becomes a rubber stamp: “You lose.” This work examines the product of that second-class appellate justice system by filling two critical gaps in the existing literature. First, it compiles comprehensive data on the use of unpublished decisions across the circuits over the last twenty years. The data reveal, for the first time, that the courts’ continued—and increasing—reliance on unpublished decisions has no correlation to overall caseload volume. Second, it examines the output of the second-tier appellate justice system from the perspective of the litigants themselves. Relying on a procedural justice framework, this work develops a taxonomy of unpublished decisions and argues for minimum standards for reason-giving in most unpublished decisions.

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