Is the Ninth Circuit Too Large? A Statistical Study of Judicial Quality

Richard Posner

The Journal of Legal Studies, 2000, vol. 29, issue 2, 711-19

Abstract: This paper provides an empirical test of the claim that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has too many judges to be able to do a good job. Reversals (especially summary reversals) by the Supreme Court and citations are used as proxies for quality of judicial output. The overall conclusion is that (1) adding judgeships tends to reduce the quality of a court's output and (2) the Ninth Circuit's uniquely high rate of being summarily reversed by the Supreme Court (a) is probably not a statistical fluke and (b) may not be a product simply of that circuit's large number of judges. Copyright 2000 by the University of Chicago.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/468090 (application/pdf)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlstud:v:29:y:2000:i:2:p:711-19

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Journal of Legal Studies from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().