Legal Musing of the Day

Take a good look at this map. That's a map of the US circuits. It helps guide cases through to the US Supreme Court.

Notice anything interesting? Like how the Ninth Circuit includes the following states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California, Arizona, and Nevada? It is far larger than any other circuit in the country. It has a case load in the tens of thousands of cases annually, and that it is also the circuit most frequently overruled by the US Supreme Court suggests that the bench can't handle the load.

Here's an idea that is long past time. Break up the Ninth.

At a minimum, there should be at least two new circuits out of it. Alaska, Washington, Idaho and Montana would all become the new 12th Circuit. Hawaii, Guam, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona would be the new 13th Circuit, and California would remain the 9th Circuit.

Each of the new circuits would be established based on the existing precedents of the 9th, but from the point of creation forward, each would be able to independently arrive at judicial decisions.

I know that I'm not the first to suggest breaking up the Ninth, nor will I be the last, but it is well past time that this get the attention it deserves.