House Passes Provision to Split Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

The Center applauded a provision to split the federal appellate court that is notorious for its long delays and radical rulings.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 6, 2004

Contact: Jeffrey Mazzella

703.535.5836

CFIF Applauds House Passage of Provision to Split
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Center for Individual Freedom today applauded House passage of a provision to split the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the federal appellate court notorious for its long delays and radical rulings, including recently finding the phrase "one Nation under God" in our national Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.

The provision passed yesterday as an amendment to S. 878, a bill to authorize additional federal judgeships, by a vote of 205 to 194. The provision, which will next be considered by the Senate, would create a new Ninth Circuit consisting of California, Guam, Hawaii and the Northern Marianas Islands. In addition, it would create two new circuits: A Twelfth Circuit made up of Arizona, Nevada, Idaho and Montana, and a Thirteenth Circuit consisting of Alaska, Oregon and Washington.

"Passage of this legislation is long overdue," said Jeffrey Mazzella, the Center’s Executive Director. "Due to its massive size and tremendous workload, the current Ninth Circuit has become incredibly inept in its responsibility to effectively and efficiently administer justice. Simply put, it is currently the most burdened court in the nation. If you couple that with its merry band of activist judges, it’s no wonder why the Ninth Circuit is consistently and overwhelmingly the Circuit in greatest need of supervision by the U.S. Supreme Court."

The San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit is by far the country’s largest federal circuit, serving approximately 54 million people in nine western states and two territories (stretching more than 1.3 million square miles, or nearly 40 percent of the United States). Nevertheless, despite the Ninth Circuit’s immense size, it takes up an even larger and disproportionate share of the U.S. Supreme Court’s time and oversight.

Specifically, according to a newly released study by the Center for Individual Freedom Foundation, the Ninth Circuit, alone, accounted for nearly one third (31.5 percent, 81 of 257) of all written decisions issued by the Supreme Court during the last four terms in cases that arose from the federal appellate courts. More disturbing is the fact that the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in 60 of those cases (74.1 percent), 26 of which were unanimously reversed.

"There is no question that the Ninth Circuit is the most reversed and the most unanimously reversed court in the country, by far," said Mazzella. "During the last four terms, the High Court reversed the Ninth Circuit a whopping 60 times, more than the next three most reversed circuits combined. Worse, the Ninth Circuit was unanimously reversed more times in the same period than the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh and Eighth Circuits combined.

"Those numbers cannot be chalked up to mere coincidence," Mazzella added. "House passage of the provision to break up the Ninth Circuit is the necessary first step to ensuring speedy justice for the nearly 40 million people currently under the court’s jurisdiction and to reinstating accountability for the judges who serve there. It is our hope that the Senate will quickly follow the House of Representatives’ lead in passing this important legislation."

The Center for Individual Freedom is a non-partisan, non-profit constitutional advocacy group that fights to protect individual freedoms and rights in the legal, legislative and educational arenas. For the past several years, the Center has been a leading proponent of breaking up the Ninth Circuit. Its advocacy efforts have generated thousands of letters to Congress from activists across the country urging a Ninth Circuit split.

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• To download a copy of the Center for Individual Freedom Foundation’s study on the Ninth Circuit, click here (pdf).

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