| Popis: |
Judges, commissions, members of Congress and scholars have debated whether the Ninth Circuit's exceptional size leads to inconsistent, unpredictable decision making that undermines the rule of law. Many bills to split the circuit have been introduced in Congress. Despite the debate, there has been relatively little quantitative work on measuring inconsistency in the Ninth Circuit. After describing several methodological challenges, we use an original dataset of appeals filed in the Ninth and Second Circuits to examine multiple quantitative indicators of inconsistency. Our analysis suggests that there is significantly more inter-panel disagreement in the Ninth Circuit than in the Second Circuit, as well as approximately three times more inconsistency than what judges often claim is standard. |
