Court Opinion

ID: 8407805
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-02 16:34:51.932998+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:47:30.516692
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the order.
My -views as to the merits of this issue are set forth in the amended majority opinion authored by Judge Goodwin, and I adhere to them fully. I write separately for two reasons unrelated to the contents of that opinion. I write first to comment on the separate dissent to the denial of rehearing en banc authored by Judge McKeown and joined in by Judges Hawkins, Thomas, and Rawlinson, in which my colleagues appear to express the view that a case should be reheard en banc whenever it involves “a question of exceptional importance.” FED. R. APP. P. 35(a)(2).1 Second, I am compelled to register my strong disagreement with one particularly unfortunate aspect of Judge O’Scannlain’s principal dissent that reflects a serious misconception of fundamental constitutional principles and the proper role of the federal judiciary.
I
As to the first question, I disagree with the notion that the importance of an issue is a sufficient reason to take a case en banc, either under the Rule or as a matter of judicial policy. Rule 35(a) advises this court of its discretionary power to order that a case already decided by a three-judge panel be reheard by the full court. Specifically, the rule begins by stating that a “majority of the circuit judges who are in regular active service may order that an appeal or other proceeding be heard or reheard by the court of appeals en banc.” FED. R. APP. P. 35(a) (emphasis added). Subsection two guides such discretionary consideration by stating that one compelling reason to grant rehearing en banc is the “exceptional importance” of a particular case.
The most reasonable construction of the Rule is that this court should rehear a case en banc when it is both of exceptional importance and the decision requires correction. See United States v. Burdeau, 180 F.3d 1091, 1092 (9th Cir.1999) (Tashi-ma, J., concurring in the order denying rehearing en banc) (“Subject to rare exceptions, ... we should review the statements in three[-]judge panel opinions only to ‘determine whether the [panel’s] legal error resulted in an erroneous judgment. ....’”) (quoting Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, 467 U.S. 837, 842, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984)). A decision may warrant correction because a three-judge panel has reached a result or adopted a legal rale or principle that conflicts with our existing circuit law or that the majority of our court believes is incorrect and needs further review. The fact that three-judge panels often decide cases of exceptional importance, whether it be the constitutionality of a state’s decision to execute an individual who may be innocent, the existence or non-existence of a fundamental right, or the ability of the Congress to require the states to comply with federal law — an issue that some of us thought had been settled by the successful end to the Civil War — is an unremarkable, but undeniably important, aspect of our appellate system. See Tracey E. George, The *470Dynamics and Determinants of the Decision to Grant En Banc Review, 74 WASH. L. REV. 213, 218 (1999) (stating that three-judge panels “representing and acting on behalf of the whole court” is a “basic tenet of our intermediate appellate system”). Unless reconsidered en banc, a decision of a three-judge panel is a decision of our court and speaks for our court. Moreover, it ordinarily constitutes the final judicial decision.2
To rehear a case en banc simply on the basis that it involves an important issue would undermine the three-judge panel system and create an impractical and crushing burden on what otherwise should be, as Rule 35(a) suggests, an exceptional occurrence. See FED. R. APP. P. 35(a) (“An en banc hearing or rehearing is not favored.... ”). According to statistics kept by the Clerk of the court, in 2002 this court decided 5,190 cases on the merits, more than 98% of which were finally decided by three-judge panels. These decisions are not measures of “rough justice,” later to be refined by the en banc court. Unless they decide issues of exceptional importance erroneously, create a direct intra-circuit split, or unless the interests of justice require that the decision be corrected, the opinions of three-judge panels should constitute the final action of this court.
II
I also feel compelled to discuss a disturbingly wrongheaded approach to constitutional law manifested in the dissent authored by Judge O’Scannlain. The dissent suggests that this court should be able to conclude that the panel’s holding was erroneous by observing the “public and political reaction” to its decision. Dissent at 2783. This is not the first time that the magnitude of the political response regarding an issue has distracted certain members of this court. An equally disturbing misunderstanding of the nature of our Constitution and the role of the federal judiciary was manifested in Coalition for Econ. Equity v. Wilson, 122 F.3d 692 (9th Cir.1997), a case involving a California initiative .on the subject of affirmative action. There, the three-judge panel, in a case that unfortunately was not taken en banc, notwithstanding its exceptional importance, made the following remarkable statement: “A system which permits one judge to block with the stroke of a pen what 4,736,180 state residents voted to enact as law tests the integrity of our constitutional democracy.” Id. at 699 (O’Scann-lain, J.).
The Bill of Rights is, of course, intended to protect the rights of those in the minority against the temporary passions of a majority which might wish to limit their freedoms or liberties. As Justice Jackson recognized:
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638, 63 S.Ct. 1178, 87 L.Ed. 1628 *471(1943). It is the highest calling of federal judges to invoke the Constitution to repudiate unlawful majoritarian actions and, when necessary, to strike down statutes that would infringe on fundamental rights, whether such statutes are adopted by legislatures or by popular vote. The constitutional system that vests such power in an independent judiciary does not “test[ ] the integrity of ... democracy.” It makes democracy vital, and is one of our proudest heritages.
Moreover, Article III judges are by constitutional design insulated from the political pressures governing members of the other two branches of government. We are given life tenure and a secured salary so that, in our unique capacity to “say what the law is,” Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2 L.Ed. 60, 177 (1803), we may decide constitutional issues without regard to popular vote, political consequence, or the prospect of future career advancement.3 Most federal judges do not question the wisdom of this approach. When the federal judiciary is so firmly separated by constitutional structure from the direct influence of politics, we must not undermine that structure by allowing political pressures, polls, or “focus groups” to influence our opinions, even indirectly.
This is not to say that federal judges should be completely sequestered from the attitudes of the nation we serve, even though our service is accomplished . not through channeling popular sentiment but through strict adherence to established constitutional principles. The Constitution contemplates occasions when we must be responsive to long-term societal trends— when determining, for example, that which is “cruel and unusual,” see Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9, 112 S.Ct. 995, 117 L.Ed.2d 156 (1992), whether in the execution of the mentally retarded, see Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 122 S.Ct. 2242, 2247, 153 L.Ed.2d 335 (2002), or the execution of juvenile offenders, see In re Stanford, — U.S.-, 123 S.Ct. 472, 474, 154 L.Ed.2d 364 (2002) (Stevens, J., dissenting from the denial of an application for an original writ of habeas corpus). This broader long-term social conscience, however, is a matter far different from responding to particular immediate political pressures. We may not — we must not — allow public sentiment or outcry to guide our decisions. It is particularly important that we understand the nature of our obligations and the strength of our constitutional principles in times of national crisis; it is then that our freedoms and our liberties are in the greatest peril. Any suggestion, whenever or wherever made, that federal judges should be encouraged by the approval of the majority or deterred by popular disfavor is fundamentally inconsistent with the Constitution and must be firmly rejected.

. While the brief separate dissent is deliberately opaque and uninformative, I would suspect that not all of its signatories believe that the general rule they appear to advocate should apply regardless of the "correctness” of the panel opinion. The concept that "exceptional importance” is, without more, a sufficient reason for en banc review is, however, shared by at least several members of the Court and accordingly merits some discussion.

. While the Supreme Court unquestionably has the authority to review any or all of the decisions of the Court of Appeals, the Court has elected to hear a remarkably small number of cases in recent years. For example, in the 2001 term, of the 7,852 case filings, the Court heard argument in 88 cases, and disposed of 85 in 76 signed opinions. See Supreme Court of the United States, 2002 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/publicinfo/ year-end/2002year-endreport.html.

. Alexander Hamilton was admirably cognizant of the danger of relying on temporary political whimsy:
This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjectures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community.
The Federalist NO. 78, at 437 (Alexander Hamilton) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1999).