Happy New Year!

Bloomberg law has Chief Justice Roberts Touts AI in Annual Report Avoiding Ethics -- Roberts ignores ethics scandals, low public support / Focuses on struggles with, benefits of technology. "Chief Justice John Roberts used his end-of-year report to talk about the benefits and potential risks, of artificial intelligence while making no reference to the Supreme Court’s alleged ethics violations, blockbuster decisions, and historic public distrust."

Today's DJ has January's Exceptionally Appealing column, Highs and lows: the 2023 appellate year in review, and also Myron Moskovitz's Using Precedent to Persuade.

For 9th Cir. news, check out Judge Friedland's dissental here, which begins:

In nearly a decade on the bench, I have never previously written or joined a dissent from a denial of rehearing en banc.1 I feel compelled to do so now to urge any future court that interprets the Energy Policy and Conservation Act not to repeat the panel opinion’s mistakes.

    [Footnote 1] I have generally agreed with Judge Berzon’s article on this issue that dissents from the denial of rehearing en banc do not improve the court’s decision-making process.  Marsha S. Berzon, Dissent, “Dissentals,” and Decision Making, 100 Cal. L. Rev. 1479, 1491–92 (2012).  But, as Judge Berzon explained, sometimes “dissents from the denial of rehearing en banc [can] make a useful point not made by the panel majority opinion, or any separate opinion,” and such dissents “may aid other circuits considering the same or similar issues.”  Id. at 1492 n.57.

See the NLJ's article 'Clear Misinterpretation': Dissent Slams 9th Circuit’s Rehearing Denial in Gas Ban Case