On 27 Jan 2004, Dave wrote:

"Bobsprit" said:

A federal judge has declared unconstitutional
a portion of the USA Patriot Act

[She is in the 9th Circuit. Guess w]hich circuit
is reversed more often than all the others by
a wide wide margin?

This charge is as oft stated as it is incorrect in fact. As 9th Cir.
Judge Hawkins wrote in a letter published in the Wall Street Journal,

"The actual numbers are available for the rate at which
the Supreme Court 'slapped down' the lower courts in
the last Term. The average reversal rate was 74%. The
rate for the Ninth Circuit was 75% (same as the Sixth);
four circuits had 100% reversal rates (Second, Fourth,
Fifth & Tenth); and state supreme courts were reversed
81% of the time."

Numerous studies confirm this position. Even so, some folks claim
otherswise, although mostly because there are different ways to
measure federal court of appeals reversal rates. Indeed, there isn't
even agreement how to account for different ways different circuits
account for the differing kinds of cases they each take and dispose of
(e.g., by so-called "summary" reversals or affirmances of their lower
courts' rulings). Also, the nature of cases litigated in each of the
geographically disparate and, relatedly, often politially/culturally
very different circuits makes any method of just relying on statistics
dubious even if (for some circumstances) helpful.

One element of the lawsuit referred to is how terribly vague the
provision in question was and yet the great pains that Ashcroft and
his colleagues in the U.S. DOJ went to raise every possible
technical/procedural argument they could think of to try to convince
the court not to rule on the merits itself of the First Amendment free
speech and right to associate issues actually presented.

Why/how any of this is appropriate for a sailing-related newsgroup
meanwhile remains a so far unanswered question . . . .