Federal Courts. Review by Circuit Courts of Appeals. Subsequent Proceedings Maintainable Only in Circuit Court of Appeals Reviewing Original NLRB Order

1939 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 331 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Federal Courts ◽  
Courts Of Appeals ◽  
Circuit Court ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
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scholarly journals Of Whites and men: How gender and race impact authorship of published and unpublished opinions in the US courts of appeals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 Little is known about authorship of less influential unpublished opinions. Distinguishing between the costs, benefits, and risks inherent in authoring published versus unpublished opinions, we develop and test theoretical expectations about how demographic characteristics of opinion assignors and assignees influence authorship across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are more likely to assign White and male judges to write published opinions and less likely to assign them to write unpublished opinions.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.

Appeals by the Prosecution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. King ◽  
Michael Heise
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Work ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
Court Of Appeals ◽  
High Courts ◽  
Extensive Information ◽  
State High Courts ◽  
State Prosecutors ◽  
Rate Of Success

Scholarly and public debates about criminal appeals have largely taken place in an empirical vacuum. This study builds on our prior empirical work exploring defense-initiated criminal appeals and focuses on criminal appeals by state and federal prosecutors. Exploiting data drawn from a recently released national sample of appeals by state prosecutors decided in 2010, as well as data from all appeals by federal prosecutors to the United States Court of Appeals terminated in the years 2011 through 2016, we provide a detailed snapshot of non-capital, direct appeals by prosecutors, including extensive information on crime type, claims raised, type of defense representation, oral argument and opinion type, as well judicial selection, merits review, and relief. Findings include a rate of success for state prosecutor appeals about four times greater than that for defense appeals (roughly 40% of appeals filed compared to 10%). The likelihood of success for state prosecutor-appellants appeared unrelated to the type of crime, claim, or defense counsel, whether review was mandatory or discretionary, or whether the appellate bench was selected by election rather than appointment. State high courts, unlike intermediate courts, did not decide these appeals under conditions of drastic asymmetry. Of discretionary criminal appeals reviewed on the merits by state high courts, 41% were prosecutor appeals. In federal courts, prosecutors voluntarily dismissed more than half the appeals they filed, but were significantly less likely to withdraw appeals from judgments of acquittal and new trial orders after the verdict than to withdraw appeals challenging other orders. Among appeals decided on the merits, federal prosecutors were significantly more likely to lose when facing a federal defender as an adversary compared to a CJA panel attorney.

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