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Bold Justice: September 6, 2018

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Ballotpedia's Bold Justice

Welcome to the September edition of Bold Justice, Ballotpedia's newsletter about SCOTUS and other judicial happenings around the U.S. This publication goes out the first Monday of the month (with some exceptions). Don't want to miss any news during the back-to-school rush? Follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Daily Brew for the most up-to-date political information.
We #SCOTUS so you don't have to

This month, we’re taking a look at reversal rates in SCOTUS cases over the last two decades.

The Supreme Court hears and reaches decisions in 70 to 90 cases each year. There are two major decisions SCOTUS can make—affirm a lower court's ruling or reverse it. The vast majority of SCOTUS cases originate in a lower court—either one of the 13 appeals circuits, state-level courts, or U.S. district courts. Original jurisdiction cases cannot be considered affirmed or reversed since SCOTUS is the first and only court that rules in the case.

Since 2007, SCOTUS has released opinions in 850 cases. Of those, it reversed a lower court decision 596 times (70.1 percent) while affirming a lower court decision 235 times (27.6 percent). In that time period, SCOTUS has decided more cases originating from the Ninth Circuit (167) than from any other circuit.

SCOTUS' reversal rate for the October 2017-2018 term was 70.3 percent, 0.2 percentage points higher than the average rate of reversal since 2007.

Want to know more about SCOTUS case reversal rates? Check out Ballotpedia's analysis.
SCOTUS trivia

During the SCOTUS nomination process, the Senate Judiciary Committee conducts an investigation into the nominee's background and the nominee testifies in a public hearing before the committee. The first nominee to appear before the committee was John H. Harlan in 1955. When was the first televised SCOTUS nomination hearing and who was the nominee?

  1. 1955, John H. Harlan
  2. 1967, Thurgood Marshall
  3. 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor
  4. 1987, Robert Bork

Choose an answer to find out!
Federal Court action

The Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings on SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh this week. On July 9, President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh is currently a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Keep up with Kavanaugh's nomination here.
Federal Court action

Confirmations

The United States Senate confirmed 11 additional nominees since our last issue.

The U.S. Senate has now confirmed 60 federal judges—33 district court judges, 26 appeals court judges, and one Supreme Court justice (Neil Gorsuch)—nominated by President Donald Trump (R).

According to the Pew Research Center, by July 12 of his second year, the Senate confirmed more appeals court judges nominated by Trump than the previous six presidents:

  • Donald Trump: 22
  • Barack Obama: 9
  • George W. Bush: 9
  • Bill Clinton: 11
  • George H.W. Bush: 15
  • Ronald Reagan: 14
  • Jimmy Carter: 10

The U.S. Court of Appeals (or circuit court) is the intermediate appellate court of the United States federal courts. There are 13 circuit courts with 179 authorized judgeships.

The U.S. Senate confirmed seven of the nominees to federal courts, where they will serve lifetime terms, on August 28.

Opponents of Trump criticized Democratic senators for agreeing to a confirmation vote. Brian Fallon, executive director of the group Demand Justice and a former spokesman for Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), told Bloomberg, "Mitch McConnell is in the middle of stealing the federal courts for conservatives, and Democrats continue to bring a butter knife to a gunfight."

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said the Democrats were just speeding up the inevitable. "I think [Democrats] realized it was going to happen sooner or later and they could do it the hard way or the easy way," he said.

New nominations

Trump announced six new nominations last month:

Trump has announced 165 nominations since taking office on January 20, 2017.

Vacancies

The federal judiciary currently has 148 vacancies. Of those 148 vacancies, 68 have no nominee. According to the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts and other outlets, an additional 26 judges have announced their intention to leave active judicial status during Trump’s first term. There are 80 pending nominations to seats tracked by Ballotpedia’s Federal Vacancy Count.

Committee action

In August, the Senate Judiciary Committee did not report nominees out of committee for a full confirmation vote.

Love judicial nomination, confirmation, and vacancy information? We figured. Our monthly Federal Vacancy Count, published on the last Wednesday of every month, monitors all the faces, places, and spaces moving in, moving out, and moving on in the federal judiciary.

Need a daily fix? Our Federal Vacancy Warning System has got you covered with continuing updates on the status of all federal judicial nominees.

Or, if you prefer, we maintain a list of individuals Trump has nominated.
A judge you oughta know

Every month, we at Ballotpedia highlight a federal court you should know. Right now, we’re taking a closer look at the United States courts of appeals, or circuit courts. They are the intermediate appellate courts of the U.S. federal courts. There are 13 U.S. courts of appeals.

This month, let’s head to Massachusetts, where we'll find one of the seats of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The First Circuit has jurisdiction over Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico. Appeals are heard in Boston, Mass., or in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Congress established the First Circuit in 1891 with two authorized judgeships. It had the current six authorized judgeships by 1984. Four of the court's six current judges were appointed by Democratic presidents. There are no vacancies. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer served as chief judge of the court from 1990 to 1994.

Since 2007, SCOTUS reversed 10 decisions of 23 cases from the First Circuit, a rate of 43.5 percent—one of the lowest case reversal rates of the circuit courts.
Looking ahead

Here’s what we’re looking ahead to this month:


Why subscribe to Bold Justice?

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Join us, counsel, as we lay the foundation for what happened this week in the world of federal courts. Our record will reflect the cases SCOTUS heard, which judges retired, which were nominated, and what important rulings come out of other federal courts. Call us as your next witness and get the most in-depth coverage of federal courts available to your inbox. Subscribe for free today.

Ballotpedia has been providing new areas of coverage, performing in-depth analyses, and developing new tools to help keep our readers in the know since 2006. This is one more resource to keep you informed—one that can be delivered to your inbox once a week.







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Why Bold Justice?

Well, there’s a story behind it, and we’re happy to credit Justice Samuel Alito for the inspiration. Back in October of 2014, Justice Alito joined his fellow Supreme Court Yale Law alumni, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, for a panel as part of the law school’s alumni weekend (video below). During the discussion, the moderator asked the audience if they could guess which of the three justices on the panel served as the inspiration for a coffee house to name one of their blends of coffee, Bold Justice. Justice Alito responded, “Obviously, it’s me.”

He went on to tell the story of how, during his days as a Third Circuit judge, his law clerks participated in a Newark, New Jersey, coffee shop’s year-long promotion wherein if customers sampled every blend for one year, the customers could then create and name a blend of coffee. Justice Alito described Bold Justice as a blend that was “designed for about three o’clock in the afternoon if you’re working and you’re starting to fall asleep, if you have this, it will jolt you awake.” A blend of courts and coffee: sounds perfect to us!

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