Friday, March 02, 2007

The Lands Council v. Martin (9th Cir. - Mar. 2, 2007)

Stop making me look bad, Judge Graber.

When she first issued the opinion, I took time out to compliment her on dispensing justice fairly rapidly here. Good job cranking out the opinion fairly quickly, I said.

A bit too quickly, it turns out. She -- or, probably more accurately, her law clerk -- got confused, and thought that an expert hired by the Intervenors was actually hired by the Forest Service. And so had to go back after the opinion was published and change two sentences. Oops.

But a minor error. And at least she went ahead and 'fessed up -- and made the changes -- after getting a letter from one of the parties.

Plus, I'd rather that justice be dispensed quickly, with irrelevant errors, than slowly but with perfect grammar and text. An obvious call.