On Wednesday, Law Professor Orin Kerr wrote on "The Volokh Conspiracy" weblog that "a lot of people have talked about the Supreme Court's small docket; Judge Harry Pregerson of the Ninth Circuit is actually doing something about it." 

The flip comment came following a new Ninth Circuit decision that Professor Kerr characterized as such an obvious choice for reversal by the Supreme Court of the United States that it "has 'Destination: One First Street' written all over it."  But regardless of the ultimate "destination" of that case, the jurist who most deserves the dubious distinction of consistently filling the High Court's docket is another Ninth Circuit judge -- Stephen Reinhardt.

Indeed, just two days before Professor Kerr made his comment, the Supreme Court overturned Judge Reinhardt for the second time this term -- in fact, for the second time in a month -- and they did so unanimously.  What's more, the justices have only issued six decisions since their term began on the first Monday in October.  So, as of Monday, Judge Reinhardt accounted for one-third of the High Court's decisions.

We will readily admit that counting so early in the term is not the fairest way of looking at things because the justices issue most of their rulings later.  But Judge Reinhardt has consistently led the pack at the end of the term, too.  For instance, when all was said and done at One First Street last term, the Supreme Court had overturned six judgments that Judge Reinhardt had either written or voted for.

To put this in numerical context, the Supreme Court issued just 87 decisions through written opinions last term, so Judge Reinhardt accounted for nearly seven percent of the High Court's docket.  That may seem like a fairly small proportion, but you have to remember that the High Court regularly reviews cases from every federal appellate court in the country, not to mention the highest courts of the 50 states.  In other words, the justices take up cases from literally hundreds of judges, so it is unusual for a single person, like Judge Reinhardt, to make regular multiple appearances on the High Court's docket.

It is not an exaggeration -- though it might be euphemistic -- to say that Judge Reinhardt is a "favorite" of the justices.  As the Center for Individual Freedom Foundation reported in a study published two years ago: In the decade from the beginning of October 1994 through the end of September 2004, "the Supreme Court has reversed decisions that Judge Reinhardt authored or joined an amazing 53 times, accounting for more than one-third of the Ninth Circuit cases reversed" during that period. 

The study went on to explain that Judge Reinhardt's "average of 5.3 reversals per Supreme Court term far outpaced his fellow jurists on the Ninth Circuit or any other federal appeals court nationwide."  In fact, "not only had the Supreme Court overturned Judge Reinhardt 53 times since 1994, in 26 of those cases (49 percent), all nine justices reversed," meaning not a single justice – neither conservative nor liberal -- sided with Judge Reinhardt on those matters.  And, as can be seen both this term and last, Judge Reinhardt's troubling trend didn't end in 2004.

The types of cases in which Judge Reinhardt gets overturned demonstrate just how far out of the mainstream he is.  While Judge Reinhardt is a legal lightning rod on any issue that crosses his bench, he routinely votes in favor of not just criminal defendants but convicted criminals, who must think of him as their best friend on the bench.  For instance, the pair of Judge Reinhardt rulings that the justices overturned in the last month were habeas corpus appeals in which Judge Reinhardt sought to overturn murder convictions because of technicalities.

Specifically, in the case the High Court unanimously reversed on Monday, Judge Reinhardt had ruled that a murderer couldn't get a fair trial because the victim's family wore buttons with pictures of the victim in the courtroom during his trial.  In the earlier case the justices overturned, Judge Reinhardt had invalidated a death sentence on the basis that a California jury had not more consciously considered evidence that the convicted murderer changed for the better after his crime.  In other words, unlike most Americans, including most of the Supreme Court, Judge Reinhardt gives every last benefit of the doubt to the criminal while expecting perfection from the criminal justice system.

In the end, this is all the long way of saying that Judge Reinhardt isn't himself abiding by the structured and ordered rule of law he is supposed to uphold, since as a lower court judge he frequently flouts instructions from his judicial superiors.  Indeed, Judge Reinhardt nearly admits as much, being quoted as saying he will not "rush to do the dirty deed" of "current justices of the Supreme Court."  But, given such open ambivalence to what the law really is, as well as the demonstrated interest of the justices in righting Judge Reinhardt's resulting wrongs, there is little question that Judge Reinhardt will continue to fill the Supreme Court's docket.  The justices will continue to overturn him early and often.