Friday, February 17, 2017

Is the 9th Cir. really a "Court in Chaos"?

Law360 reports Trump Slams 9th Circ. As Court In ‘Chaos,’ ‘Turmoil’, which begins: "President Donald Trump slammed the Ninth Circuit on Thursday as a court in “chaos” and “turmoil,” claiming at a news conference that the court has been overturned by the Supreme Court “at a record number,” ..." The article goes on to present a wealth of statistics showing that the Circuit is "not overturned the most." UCLA's Professor Patrick Goodman (who supervises UCLAw students handling appeals) is in the article too:
Patrick Goodman“It is baffling and frightening that an American president would think nothing of trying to tear down the legitimacy of the Ninth Circuit, merely because he lost this round in court," Goodman said. "But people hear what the president says and reasonably assume it to be true, and he knows it.  We are talking about the legitimacy of our system of government, and so this kind of precedent-setting trash talk is not only selfish but ultimately very, very dangerous.”