DJ profiles Judge Ryan Nelson

Today's DJ has Influential Dissents -- 9th Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson has proven to be persuasive to US Supreme Court.

• When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the prayers of a public high school football coach on the field's 50-yard line immediately following games were protected by the First Amendment, overturning a decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it relied in part on the reasoning of 9th Circuit Judge Ryan D. Nelson, who dissented from his court's denial of en banc review in the case.
• When he began his undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University, Nelson thought he would become a doctor. But, by the time he was a junior -- and after completing a two-year Mormon mission in Belgium -- he had decided to pursue the law instead. "I just could never get away from the passion I have for the law, language, writing, critical thinking -- all those things are very interesting to me," said Nelson, whose father is still a practicing attorney in Idaho Falls. "I ultimately decided I wanted something that was going to play to my strengths and my passions, and I felt like the law would do that."