Legal News

The 9th Circuit: A Sword-Wielding Mongol Horde, or a Band of Hippies?

By Dan Slater

This week, the Ninth Circuit holds its annual conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, where the Law Blog once lived and worked for a year. (Dining tip for judges: Order the fish & chips at the Cellar Pub, and then head to Grumpy’s for a schooner.)

We can’t think of a better place to hold a conference, especially in late July, when Sun Valley’s micro-climate turns warm and dry, and its world-class fly-fishing (Big Wood, Silver Creek) is at its best. From the sounds of it, the judges are enjoying themselves. Today, the NLJ reports that Judge Jay S. Bybee, pontificating on “the divergence of views on the law between the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court,” posted a series of photos that he said illustrates the misperceptions on both sides and by other circuits about the 9th Circuit.

Showing a slide of sword-wielding Mongol hordes attacking on horseback across a plain, Bybee said, “This is how we appear to the Supreme Court.”

For a photo of a colorful band of 1960s hippies sprawled across a bus painted in psychedelic colors he said, “But this is how other circuits see us.”

“And this is how other circuits look to us,” he said, for a shot of 1950s Boy Scouts marching in lock step carrying American flags.

The perception of the 9th Circuit is that it is a huge, unmanageable court, something like this, said Bybee, posting a 1800s photo of a polygamous family with dozens of members. But he said the 9th Circuit views itself as a much smaller court, “Something like this,” and showed a photo of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices, to loud laughter.

We’ve blogged on the 9th Circuit before — should it stay the size it is or be broken into two smaller circuits? Click here for that post, which takes you back to an earlier LB era, before we’d fully gotten hip to incorporating photos and the like into our posts.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 29, 2008 (boomark / email).