Court Opinion

ID: 9477485
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:24:46.483823+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:54.368275
License: Public Domain

POOLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I believe it to be altogether unseemly for this court to rush into an opinion with full knowledge that the progenitor case upon which we rely for our authority, Pangilinan v. INS, 796 F.2d 1091 (9th Cir.1986), reh’g denied, 809 F.2d 1449 (9th Cir.1987), is about to be decided by the United States Supreme Court. Certiorari was granted in our Pangilinan case on October 5, 1987, and a decision therein is unquestionably near. See — U.S. —, 108 S.Ct. 66, 98 L.Ed.2d 30 (1987). I would defer deciding Agcaoili out of prudence and deference; the majority is venturesome indeed in refusing to do so. In granting certiorari, the Supreme Court ordered it consolidated with the appeal from another decision of this circuit, Manzano v. INS, No. 84-6031 (9th Cir. Sept. 26, 1986) (unpublished), which was based on Pangilinan.
The above consolidated appeals were argued in the Supreme Court on February 24, 1988. 28 S.CtBull. 8103 (3/21/88). It is a reasonable expectation that both cases will be decided in the near future; surely in this term. The legal foundation upon which Pangilinan and Manzano rest are of uncertain duration. While the mere grant of certiorari is no certain predictor of the final outcome, the fact that the Supreme Court took for review both the published and the unpublished opinions is some hint that the Court intends more than the bestowal of its blessing upon our treatment of an issue as fundamental as is presented in these appeals. With light so near at hand, I would await its guiding beam. After all the procedures which this circuit has reviewed have lain moribund for more than 40 years. If indeed we have been blessed with the resuscitative gift inherent in our creative decrees, the beneficiaries of our jurisprudence would gain, not lose, by confirmation from the highest source that ours was indeed the way, the truth, and the life.
Since the majority is disinclined to await the certainty of ultimate affirmance, I respectfully dissent.