Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Fernandez-Ruiz v. Gonzales (9th Cir. - Nov. 15, 2006)

Whoops! I wrote a brief comment about this case earlier today that poked a tiny bit of fun of my former boss, at which point a very smart reader e-mailed me to mention -- in a very funny way -- that although Judge Reinhardt (who authored the opinion) voted with the majority in the en banc court (an opinion that I discuss here), the original panel opinion actually denied review. So while it's still interesting that Judge Reinhardt successfully cranks out a 23-page, single spaced opinion (and gets the rest of the panel to sign onto it) a mere three weeks after the en banc court remands the case to the panel -- pretty speedy, no? -- Judge Reinhardt was thereby supporting only one of his prior decisions, not two.

I still defend my claim that Judge Reinhardt's clerks are darn hardworking. I should add, however, that there's at least one other judge's chambers that's equally (if not more) dedicated to burning the midnight oil. And that's still working, and cranking out e-mails, at 11:24 at night.

Good job. Keep up the excellent work!