No, the 9th Circuit isn't the 'most overturned court in the country,' as Hannity says

[HonestJohn]

Gfo

[Cripplecreek]

Trump helped their win numbers by retreating from an appeal.

[truth_seeker]

Living not very far from San Bernardino, I want the President to keep terrorists out of the country.

People taking glee in Trump's difficulty to do same, make me question their seriousness.

Several recent Presidents used the same law. People talk about wanting a nation of laws.

But their #nevertrump obsession blinds them to simple, common sense considerations.

[Cripplecreek]

By retreating from an appeal, Trump is actually a lot closer to his original stance.

If that's where he ends up, his pets will be praising his great compassion for letting the Syrians in.

[truth_seeker]

Which has nothing at all to do with the article.

BTW: I like chickens.

Don't you have studying to do?

[Oceander]

In our research, we found that the 9th Circuit has a higher-than-average reversal rate, but not the highest.

So what court does have the highest rate?

I smell somebody playing games with statistics here.  For example, over what period of time are the writers of the article measuring reversal rate?  As per this national review article from 2014:  http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/373273/ninth-circuit-leading-pack-most-reversed-jonathan-keim

the 9th Circuit does have the highest reversal rate.

[Hoodat]

With only three Conservatives on the High Court and the pathetic legal team of the Trump White House arguing the case, how does anyone expect this decision to be overturned?

[Wingnut]

Don't you have studying to do?

Liberals don't study.

[Oceander]

1. 6th Circuit - 87 percent

2. 11th Circuit - 85 percent

3. 9th Circuit - 79 percent

It's in the article.

Over what measurement period?  Don't play games with statistics.  State exactly what data you're using.

[Wingnut]

BTW: I like chickens.

Stop choking yours.

[Oceander]

Dear lord, man.  It's all in the article found at the link!

I can cut/paste the rest, but I thought that was frowned upon.

---

The numbers

To evaluate this claim, we turned to SCOTUSBlog’s Supreme Court statistics archive, specifically their Circuit Scorecards, which track how often the Supreme Court justices agree or disagree with the lower court decisions.

The Supreme Court hears cases from the 50 state courts and 13 federal appeals courts, known as circuit courts. The cases that the Supreme Court chooses to take on are often disputed among the lower courts, complex, and problematic, so there’s a reasonable chance that the Supreme Court will decide that the lower court’s decision was wrong.

In fact, the Supreme Court reversed about 70 percent of cases it took between 2010-15. Among cases it reviewed from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it reversed about 79 percent.

The 9th Circuit’s reversal rate is higher than average, but it’s not the absolute highest among the circuit courts. That distinction goes to the 6th Circuit, which serves Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, with an 87 percent average between 2010-15.  The 9th Circuit is in third place.

1. 6th Circuit - 87 percent;

2. 11th Circuit - 85 percent;

3. 9th Circuit - 79 percent;

4. 3rd Circuit - 78 percent;

5. 2nd Circuit and Federal Circuit - 68 percent;

6. 8th Circuit - 67 percent;

7. 5th Circuit - 66 percent;

8. 7th Circuit - 48 percent;

9. DC Circuit - 45 percent;

10. 1st Circuit and 4th Circuit - 43 percent;

11. 10th Circuit - 42 percent.

We also found that the 9th Circuit never had the highest reversal rate in any individual term between 2004-15. (That’s the farthest back we could go.)

A spokesperson for Hannity pointed us to a 2014 article in National Review titled, "Ninth Circuit Leading the Pack for ‘Most Reversed.’ " But the evidence presented in the article does not support the headline.

So Hannity’s claim that the 9th Circuit is the "most overturned court in the country" is incorrect.

The Supreme Court only hears a handful of cases from each circuit each year, so the rate of reversal is highly variable, said Jonah Gelbach, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a statistician. In 2014, for instance, the 2nd Circuit had a reversal rate of 100 percent, which sounds pretty bad until you find out that the Supreme Court only heard one case from the 2nd Circuit that entire season.

The 9th Circuit is by far the largest circuit. In the 12 months leading up to March, 31, 2015, just under 12,000 cases were filed in the 9th Circuit — more than 4,000 more than the next-largest circuit, the 5th Circuit. Despite that gigantic docket, the Supreme Court heard just 11 cases from the 9th Circuit in 2015, reversing eight.

This means the Supreme Court generally reverses far less than 1 percent of all the cases the 9th Circuit (and other circuits) decide.

"Given the small numbers of cases involved, it can be difficult to draw any serious conclusions from such statistics about the quality of the courts involved," Gelbach said. "Having said that, the 9th Circuit does seem to consistently have a high reversal rate over time."

It’s possible that the sheer size of the 9th Circuit, as well as some of its procedures, cause it to produce more "outlier decisions," which are cases the Supreme Court always reverses, than other circuits — leading to a higher reversal rate, said University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt.

Roosevelt said there might have been a time in the past when the 9th Circuit was considerably more liberal than the Supreme Court, stemming from the fact that Democratic President Jimmy Carter didn’t get the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice, though he did appoint several judges to the 9th Circuit.

Today, the 9th Circuit might still have the highest number of Democratic appointees of any appeals court, but there’s been enough turnover in the past few decades that it’s not as much of an outlier, Roosevelt said.

Our ruling


Hannity said the 9th Circuit is "the most overturned court in the country."

While the 9th Circuit has a higher than average reversal rate among cases it sends to the Supreme Court, it has not had the highest rate since at least 2004 (the oldest data point we could find).

Even if it did, experts told us that the massive size of the 9th Circuit compared to the handful of cases it sends to the Supreme Court every year make reversal rates an imperfect measure of the quality of the 9th Circuit’s decisions. More broadly, experts say this statistic is a poor way of comparing courts.

We rate Hannity’s claim False.

Dear lord, whomever, if you state the claim then you'd damned well be able to put up the facts that justify your claim.

I'm sorry you expect me to do your work for you, but it doesn't work that may.

With respect to the 9th, the facts remain that they are way up there in terms of being reversed, which is bad enough, and it also matters how serious the reversal was; if it was a reversal on a very difficult, ambiguous area of law, that would be one thing, on the other hand, if it was a reversal on something stupid, then it's entirely another.  Quality matters as well as quantity.  What's the risk-weighted reversal rate?

[Cripplecreek]

I'm posting the article.  If you can't be bothered to read it, that's on you. 

I'd understand the question *IF THE ANSWERS WEREN'T IN THE ARTICLE*... but they are.

You're interfering with what some have come to accept as fact without evidence over years. They won't give up their "conventional wisdom" easily.

Instead they'll snark and insult because its more comfortable than facing facts.

[Oceander]

I'm posting the article.  If you can't be bothered to read it, that's on you. 

I'd understand the question *IF THE ANSWERS WEREN'T IN THE ARTICLE*... but they are.

Tsk, tsk, tsk.  Did I get under your skin, dearie?  Untwist your panties and take a breather.

You're pretty lazy if you put the article up, but couldn't be bothered to read it well enough to pull out the salient facts as well as simply the conclusions you like.

[Wingnut]

Soo... then @rangerrebew must have made a ton of conclusions, at least one for every article he's posted.

And I see that you can't make a single post without insulting someone.

This is not about a well respected long time contributor like Rangebrew.



stop the personal attacks!

[jmyrlefuller]

In other words, the claim of 80% reversal rate, one that got bandied about a lot, is actually true.

Of course, Politifact is cherry-picking a straw-man AND purposely leaving out part of the claim to make conservatives look back. If this had been intellectually honest it would have been rated Half True. Politifact, as usual, is not being intellectually honest.

[r9etb]

So what court does have the highest rate?

I smell somebody playing games with statistics here.  For example, over what period of time are the writers of the article measuring reversal rate?  As per this national review article from 2014:  http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/373273/ninth-circuit-leading-pack-most-reversed-jonathan-keim

the 9th Circuit does have the highest reversal rate.

What's missing in the politifact article, is the number of cases from each circuit that make it to the USSC in the first place.  In the NR article you posted, they point out that the 9th Circus has historically had many more cases reversed at the USSC, than other courts even had before the USSC.

So, for example, if the Xth Circuit has one case before the USSC and it gets reversed, they have a 100% reversal rate.

And if (as in 2010) the 9th Circus has 24 cases before the USSC and 19 of them are reversed, that's only a 79% reversal rate.

Which court is truly the "most reversed?" 

If each Circuit handles roughly the same number of cases yearly, and one of them a) gets more cases appealed to the USSC, and b) most of those get reversed .... then that is how one could call the 9th Circuit the "most reversed."

Even so, the 9th Circuit handles dozens and dozens of cases every year, and the number that get overturned by the USSC is a very small fraction of that.

[Emjay]

With only three Conservatives on the High Court and the pathetic legal team of the Trump White House arguing the case, how does anyone expect this decision to be overturned?

Have y'all seen pictures of those three judges?  How weird do they look?  On looks alone, I have to disqualify them.

[truth_seeker]

Which has nothing at all to do with the article.

BTW: I like chickens.

I am not surprised the seriousness of 14 dead and 22 injured,  escapes your social justice warrior grasp.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Trump helped their win numbers by retreating from an appeal.

There's some legal strategery behind that.  An appeal right now would risk a 4-4 split, which would validate the decision.  What they're doing now is rewriting the order to clean up the parts that are legally the weakest.  They'll keep the core of reduction of visas and cessation of refugees, then republish.  That will not only make it tougher to stop a second time, but will make it harder to uphold the 9th within the Supreme Court.  Most important, it may make the timing of the appeal late enough to have Gorsuch on the court.

[Emjay]

Dear lord, man.  It's all in the article found at the link!

I can cut/paste the rest, but I thought that was frowned upon.

---

The numbers

To evaluate this claim, we turned to SCOTUSBlog’s Supreme Court statistics archive, specifically their Circuit Scorecards, which track how often the Supreme Court justices agree or disagree with the lower court decisions.

The Supreme Court hears cases from the 50 state courts and 13 federal appeals courts, known as circuit courts. The cases that the Supreme Court chooses to take on are often disputed among the lower courts, complex, and problematic, so there’s a reasonable chance that the Supreme Court will decide that the lower court’s decision was wrong.

In fact, the Supreme Court reversed about 70 percent of cases it took between 2010-15. Among cases it reviewed from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, it reversed about 79 percent.

The 9th Circuit’s reversal rate is higher than average, but it’s not the absolute highest among the circuit courts. That distinction goes to the 6th Circuit, which serves Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, with an 87 percent average between 2010-15.  The 9th Circuit is in third place.

1. 6th Circuit - 87 percent;

2. 11th Circuit - 85 percent;

3. 9th Circuit - 79 percent;

4. 3rd Circuit - 78 percent;

5. 2nd Circuit and Federal Circuit - 68 percent;

6. 8th Circuit - 67 percent;

7. 5th Circuit - 66 percent;

8. 7th Circuit - 48 percent;

9. DC Circuit - 45 percent;

10. 1st Circuit and 4th Circuit - 43 percent;

11. 10th Circuit - 42 percent.

We also found that the 9th Circuit never had the highest reversal rate in any individual term between 2004-15. (That’s the farthest back we could go.)

A spokesperson for Hannity pointed us to a 2014 article in National Review titled, "Ninth Circuit Leading the Pack for ‘Most Reversed.’ " But the evidence presented in the article does not support the headline.

So Hannity’s claim that the 9th Circuit is the "most overturned court in the country" is incorrect.

The Supreme Court only hears a handful of cases from each circuit each year, so the rate of reversal is highly variable, said Jonah Gelbach, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a statistician. In 2014, for instance, the 2nd Circuit had a reversal rate of 100 percent, which sounds pretty bad until you find out that the Supreme Court only heard one case from the 2nd Circuit that entire season.

The 9th Circuit is by far the largest circuit. In the 12 months leading up to March, 31, 2015, just under 12,000 cases were filed in the 9th Circuit — more than 4,000 more than the next-largest circuit, the 5th Circuit. Despite that gigantic docket, the Supreme Court heard just 11 cases from the 9th Circuit in 2015, reversing eight.

This means the Supreme Court generally reverses far less than 1 percent of all the cases the 9th Circuit (and other circuits) decide.

"Given the small numbers of cases involved, it can be difficult to draw any serious conclusions from such statistics about the quality of the courts involved," Gelbach said. "Having said that, the 9th Circuit does seem to consistently have a high reversal rate over time."

It’s possible that the sheer size of the 9th Circuit, as well as some of its procedures, cause it to produce more "outlier decisions," which are cases the Supreme Court always reverses, than other circuits — leading to a higher reversal rate, said University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt.

Roosevelt said there might have been a time in the past when the 9th Circuit was considerably more liberal than the Supreme Court, stemming from the fact that Democratic President Jimmy Carter didn’t get the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice, though he did appoint several judges to the 9th Circuit.

Today, the 9th Circuit might still have the highest number of Democratic appointees of any appeals court, but there’s been enough turnover in the past few decades that it’s not as much of an outlier, Roosevelt said.

Our ruling


Hannity said the 9th Circuit is "the most overturned court in the country."

While the 9th Circuit has a higher than average reversal rate among cases it sends to the Supreme Court, it has not had the highest rate since at least 2004 (the oldest data point we could find).

Even if it did, experts told us that the massive size of the 9th Circuit compared to the handful of cases it sends to the Supreme Court every year make reversal rates an imperfect measure of the quality of the 9th Circuit’s decisions. More broadly, experts say this statistic is a poor way of comparing courts.

We rate Hannity’s claim False.

As Tommy Lee Jones said in The Fugitive, I don't care.