- Using a novel and massive dataset of about 650,000 circuit court decisions, this paper empirically investigates the significance of the political affiliations of circuit court judges, as proxied by the party of the appointing president.
- The analysis shows that these affiliations can help predict circuit court decisions in case categories that together represent more than 90% of all circuit court cases. The association between political affiliation and outcomes is thus pervasive in the vast universe of circuit court decisions, and it is not limited to the ideologically salient cases on which previous research has focused.
- the more Democratic judges a panel has, the higher the odds of a panel decision siding with the seemingly weaker party.
- the more Democratic judges on the panel, the lower the odds of a panel deferring to the lower-court decision.
Also, Law360 has 5th Circ. Makes Case Holds For Rehearing Publicly Available
- Holds issued in cases before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will now be visible to the public
- Any active Fifth Circuit judge can request the court withhold the issuance of a mandate, which is entered on the eighth day either after the time to file a petition for rehearing expires or after an order is entered denying a petition. The change, which became effective Monday, creates a public docket entry in the form of a clerk order notifying the public that a hold has been issued.
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