Dunno; this was 3-0 at the Fifth Circuit. Ho is perhaps further to the right than most of the conservatives on the Court, but Wilson and Jones are both pretty "normal" conservatives.
Edith Jones is a normal conservative?! She has to be one of the most conservative judges on the federal bench. Cory Wilson isn't much better. From a right-wing perspective, the only judge this panel was missing was Andrew Oldham.
Interestingly, I think the 5th Circuit had the highest reversal rate this term. As conservative as SCOTUS is, the 5th Circuit is chock full of movement conservatives that conflate legal opinions with personal and/or political grievances. They make Thomas and Alito look like Roberts or even Kennedy.
Edith Jones was a
very long-time SCOTUS finalist (like, for every seat between 1988 and 2006), and in general is not someone like Oldham who is thought of as an extremist. She is right-wing for sure, but an argument that Jones signs off on is one you can be pretty confident Roberts/Kavanaugh will take seriously even if they do not ultimately uphold it. Wilson admittedly is much less famous and I'm not confident about him, but he hasn't acquired a reputation as a bombthrower, whereas Ho likes to get his name out there and attack law schools (which in this space is a
very controversial thing to do).
Dunno; this was 3-0 at the Fifth Circuit. Ho is perhaps further to the right than most of the conservatives on the Court, but Wilson and Jones are both pretty "normal" conservatives.
Edith Jones is a normal conservative?! She has to be one of the most conservative judges on the federal bench. Cory Wilson isn't much better. From a right-wing perspective, the only judge this panel was missing was Andrew Oldham.
Interestingly, I think the 5th Circuit had the highest reversal rate this term. As conservative as SCOTUS is, the 5th Circuit is chock full of movement conservatives that conflate legal opinions with personal and/or political grievances. They make Thomas and Alito look like Roberts or even Kennedy.
Yeah, the idea that either those two are anything other than fringe whacktivist hacks doesn’t really pass the laugh test.
I think by the normal standard of how close the median Supreme Court member is to your opinions (...and therefore how likely they are to be put into practice), probably
most Democratic-appointed circuit court judges are 'fringe whacktivist hacks' if Edith Jones is. Jones is one of the most broadly-respected conservative judges on a lower court than SCOTUS.
The Court is going to reverse the 5th Circuit here.
Dunno; [snip].
Tbf, granting cert to an extremely unsympathetic plaintiff has historically been a Roberts Court tell of an impending shootdown.
Yeah, true. Lopez and Morrison loom large in my mind, as those (especially the latter) had very unsympathetic plaintiffs, but those were Rehnquist Court cases.
Why do you think Morrison was unsympathetic? The accuser changed her story, he was one of two accused and the other had an alibi, and a grand jury didn't find enough evidence to indict.
Just that he was credibly accused of rape. The Roberts Court has been incredibly leery about bringing down controversial decisions in cases where people are accused of crimes (in particular, Alito really doesn't like this, and he's far enough right that if he breaks he
usually takes the more-moderate judges with him), so in fact ruling in favor of Rahimi here would be kind of unusual.
Anyway, I have not heard the oral arguments but everything I've read agrees with brucejoel99 that Rahimi's case went so disastrously badly that he's basically certain to lose now. Barrett apparently questioned Prelogar about a different case which will go before the Supreme Court next term,
Garland v. Range, which is also about applying the
Bruen precedent -- but has a much more sympathetic plaintiff (instead of a domestic abuser like Rahimi, Range is an individual accused of making false statements to obtain food stamps; otherwise the fact pattern is similar with a judge issuing an order to disarm the plaintiff). Presumably these will be 'companion cases', where Rahimi loses but Range wins.
(Like, my understanding is that the best case scenario for Rahimi is the Court voting to vacate and remand in light of a pro-gun decision in
Range.)
