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“Extra” Judges in a Federal Appellate Court: The Ninth Circuit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Stephen L. Wasby
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Extract

Much attention has been devoted recently to intercircuit doctrinal conflicts in the United States Courts of Appeals (Commission, 1975b: 30-32, 37-44). Less attention has been paid to the equally—if not more—serious problem of intracircuit doctrinal conflict, which causes difficulties for lawyers attempting to advise clients and for district judges trying to apply circuit law (Wasby, 1979). Observers have suggested that decreased frequency of communication among appellate judges leads to less consistency in their decisions. Where judicial interaction is infrequent, because of increased numbers of judges on a court or the judges' geographic dispersion, the “law of the circuit” tends toward disharmony (Commission, 1973: 19-20, and 1975b: 130; also Friendly, 1973: 45). The existence and extent of intracircuit inconsistency may thus be viewed as dependent variables, the number of judges and the judges' geographic dispersion, or both, as independent variables, and communication among judges as a key intervening variable.

Type
Research Note
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , 1981 , pp. 369 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this article was presented at the meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 2, 1979. Financial assistance was provided by the Office of Research Development and Administration, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society. Office space during a sabbatical stay in San Francisco was graciously provided by Hastings College of Law through Dean Marvin Anderson.

I wish particularly to thank Dorothy Robyn, Graduate School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley, and Professor Thomas Kerr, Hastings College of Law, for assistance in developing the questionnaire; Susan Hickman and Michael Wepsiec, for tabulating data; J. Woodford Howard, Richard Richardson, and Peter G. Fish for substantive and stylistic comments on earlier versions of this article; and Joel Grossman, for appropriate prodding and editorial assistance. My deepest appreciation is extended to the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, who tolerated extensive questioning from a social scientist “court-watcher.”

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