The Ninth Circuit Curse Never Sleeps
Over the years, numerous proposals have been made to split the Ninth Circuit, the nation’s largest federal appeals court. There are certainly reasonable arguments to be made in favor of a split.
But regardless of the merits of a split, the careers of politicians who have backed these proposals seem to meet unfortunate ends. We’ve dubbed this effect the Ninth Circuit Curse. Check out this list of victims.
Last Wednesday, Senator John Ensign (R-NV) introduced a bill to split the Ninth Circuit. The very next day, he wound up on the front page of the New York Times — for possible ethics violations. Coincidence?
Politicians, consider yourselves warned: mess with the Ninth Circuit at your peril.
Senator’s Aid After Affair Raises Flags Over Ethics [New York Times]
Senate Ethics Committee investigating Ensign [Political Ticker / CNN]
Earlier: The Ninth Circuit Curse
The Ninth Circuit Curse Strikes Again
(39) Comments
Comments
ensign sucks
THIRD
2 = fail. I am third.
Third weekend post by ATL. Way to roll up your sleeves, Lat.
The Ninth Circuit is the Kangaroo Circuit Court of Appeals. District Court Clerkship in M.D.FL > Clerkship at the Ninth Circuit.
4 - Actually, the fourth weekend post by ATL, by my count (two on Saturday, two today).
The Ninth Circus Court of Appeals
You wanna do a weekend story? Why dont you do one about the Alabama Judge who goes on trial tommorow for exchanging gay sex in his office with prison inmates for lowering their sentences, even though other judges worked the cases? Why dont you report about how even though all of the inmates are black, the NAACP is hewing and hawing about how it is clearly a racist attempt to remove a black judge?
Gay sex and allegations of racism? Sound right up your alley, but please, please, please give this story to Kash. I dont trust Elie or Lat to do it justice.
8 - ATL has covered him before:
http://www.abovethelaw.com/herman_thomas/
But yeah, they should probably write about his trial now.
The link to "list of victims" is broken.
Or, the lesson could be: Don't inveigh against anything if you are a conservative Republican because you're probably an amoral, hypocritical piece of shit.
10 - It's working now.
11 - I think you mean "immoral" and not "amoral," right?
8
I've been a naughty naughty boy your honor.
basically a joke at work for people doing research for law in the SDNY. If you can't find a case on point, find cases from the ninth circuit that say the course of action you are taking is illegal. If you do, that means what you are doing is legal
The only people who are more annoying than clerks for Ninth Circuit judges are clerks for SDNY judges.
my civ pro prof is gonna love this
The Ninth Circuit may be nuts, and it gets reversed all the time, but clerking for it is prestigious. It has lots of feeder judges, both liberal (Fletcher and Reinhardt) and conservative (Kozinski and O'Scannlain).
This guy's ethics problems seem pretty minor compared to Chuck Rangel's failure to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars of inocme. Why won't the NYTimes do a front page story on him?
18 = idiot who doesn't understand either Ensign or Rangel's ethical problems.
wut
where do you get off doing a story about Ensign reporting "potential ethics violations," but you don't say a damn thing about how he was stchupping his chief-of-staff's wife? And how this 50+ year-old-man is such a pathetic loser that he had to get his parents to pay hush-money? And how his attempt to cover up the adultery is what the ethics investigation is about?
This post is the worst kind of excuse for journamalism- it implies that Ensign might not have done something he's already admitted doing, and just ignores his blatant hypocrisy. Don't cover for this dirtbag- put the thumbscrews to him.
11 = Win
21 - fails to understand to lighthearted sarcasm inherent in the OP. Humorless liberals are as sad as humorless ReDumbicans...
latham has destroyed a lot of careers
You know what I think? ATL has started doing weekend posts these last few weeks to help recover a drop-off in page views during the week. News from the legal market is dropping off, and this year ATL won't have lots of juicy bonus news to keep readers clicking daily. And a substantial portion of the site's page views have always been driven by market-related news (and once-a-year posts like U.S. News and Vault rankings), rather than the gossip and trivial fare.
Since there's no way we're going back to the "NY to 190" speculation that drove hits to ATL as little as two years ago, Lat is going to have to innovate to attract new readers rather than let eye-drawing news fall right into his lap thanks to tipsters at firms.
it also never changes its close or brush it's teeth. j/k, seriously though, i just read something about this "curse" at this blog: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/
It is quite remarkable that most of you still have jobs, considering that none of you apparently arrive at work before 8 a.m. If I arrive after 6 a.m., I am displeased with myself.
Jake,
It doesn't mean anything if you're at work but you're not working.
This post is addressed to Commenter #27:
Your post demonstrates that you live in your own world of inefficiency and lethargy; posting on ATL has no relationship to the amount of work one does. I had been at work for just over two hours by the time you made your post while still in your bathrobe and sitting at a computer in your shack-of-a-home. In any event, I am now nearing 2:30 billable hours for the day at my father's preeminent peer law firm and am ready for law classes to begin at 8 a.m. Please, schlub, get to work.
28= virgin
29 = unemployed (and wanting work)
30's comeback= one step above, "no I'm not."
31 = recently laid off
9th Circuit being constantly reversed? Wow, you guys must have been paying attention. The Federal Circuit has been the whipping boy of SCOTUS for a couple years now. Even more odd considering SCOTUS doesn't take clerks from FedCir.
32 = roxana
We need to bomb Burma back to the stoneage!
-DOJ Secure
12: No, 11 is correct. "Immoral" describes an action or behavior that transgresses moral norms; "amoral" describes a person without morals.
- Guy Who Speaks English As A First Language
Another 9 1/2 Circuits ???
36 - No, I think what Ensign allegedly did is pretty IMmoral (if true). It's a violation of sexual mores, ethical rules, and possibly federal law.
24 - Or maybe they just enjoy writing the occasional weekend post.