5 ms·

It's been way too long since I've taken a political science course, but does this mean that the ban is struck down for the entire country, or just the area that

It's been way too long since I've taken a political science course, but does this mean that the ban is struck down for the entire country, or just the area that the 5th Court of Appeals covers?

malfist 6mo ago
Prior to this year, the entire country. Today, thanks to SCOTUS shenanigans, it likely only applies to the states involved in the lawsuit, LA. But who knows, hard to keep up with the game of calvinball the SCOTUS is playing.
- dcrazy 6mo ago
  You seem to be confusing precedent-setting decisions with nationwide injunctions.
  - rtkwe 6mo ago
    Probably though the old pattern was that the plaintiffs would request and the Circuit would issue a nationwide injunction with the ruling when finding that a law in full unconstitutional. Now we have the weird situation where the constitution is more patchwork because you have to get rulings in all the Circuits or wait for one case to make it all the way to the Supreme Court.
    - rdbl27 6mo ago
      No, that was never the old pattern. Nationwide injunctions were unheard of until very recently -- as in, within the past 10-20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction
      - malfist 6mo ago
        Your own source says they've been common since 1960
        dcrazy 6mo ago
        It doesn’t say that. It says that the D.C Court of Appeals issued one in 1963, and then quotes the DOJ as saying “ nationwide injunctions remained ‘exceedingly rare’ for a few decades after 1963[,]” notwithstanding one issued by a district judge in New York in 1973. Regardless of what you think about nationwide injunctions, your original assertion that “prior to this year,” a decision by a federal appellate court would apply the entire country is categorically false.
gmiller123456 6mo ago
Appeals court decisions generally only apply to their own jurisdiction. But they obviously hold a lot of weight when cited in others.
rtkwe 6mo ago
The ruling only has binding precedent in the 5th Circuit, other circuits aren't bound to follow it. Formerly this kind of ruling would come with a nationwide injunction to force the issue but now that those are severely curtailed by the Supreme Court it's only binding to the courts under the jurisdiction of the 5th circuit. Decisions in other circuits can be very persuasive to other circuits but they're not required to agree the same way a Supreme Court ruling is binding. Circuit splits are moderately common and usually trigger a review by the supreme court if an appeal wasn't filed for the earlier decisions.
- rdbl27 6mo ago
  Nationwide injunctions are a very recent legal innovation -- as in, extremely rare until the 2000s, and uncommon until the 2010s. They were not how this situation was handled for nearly all of the existence of the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction
  - rtkwe 6mo ago
    Seems like a perfectly valid one. If the government is violating the constitution or a persons rights why should there be suits all across the country to get that recognized? Especially when the question isn't on something with a lot of particularized tests that's sensitive to the exact case, eg 4th amendment law? Why should rights be so dependent on someone in my particular part of the country having sued?
    - hansvm 6mo ago
      On the other side, why should one crazed/corrupt judge in some state which has nothing to do with me be able to infringe on my freedoms and make my life worse? Worse, why is it possible to jurisdiction shop for the single bad actor and impose your will on the entire country? You're not wrong, but (like most issues in a 350M-person country) it's complicated. The system is tailored to some expected level/type of corruption and bad actors. If you expect that the government is basically fine and that out of 50M people per region surely somebody will file suit if the issue is important then the current system makes a lot of sense. You get judges with more knowledge and awareness of your local issues, anything important still gets addressed, and you're resilient to some degree of random bad judges and bad actors. If those expectations are out of whack then you get worse outcomes. In reality, the world is complicated enough that even boiling down the lists of judges and whatnot to that simple of a description is misleading at best. Neither solution is anywhere near optimal by itself. So...what next?
bluGill 6mo ago
Only the 5th court of appeals. However if you get caught elsewhere your lawyer will have a good appeal grounds just because your area will need to decide if they agree. If all areas eventually agree it probably never will get to the supreme court. Once several different courts hear this and make a decision if they disagree the supreme court jumps in reading all the logic of everyone below them to try to find a real answer. (It doesn't always work this way, that is the textbook ideal way, but the real world is often different). Note that unless you think nothing of spending 20 million dollars on lawyers this is probably not something that you want to fight.

It's been way too long since I've taken a political science course, but does this mean that the ban is struck down for the entire country, or just the area that the 5th Court of Appeals covers?

malfist 6mo ago

Prior to this year, the entire country. Today, thanks to SCOTUS shenanigans, it likely only applies to the states involved in the lawsuit, LA. But who knows, hard to keep up with the game of calvinball the SCOTUS is playing.

dcrazy 6mo ago
You seem to be confusing precedent-setting decisions with nationwide injunctions.
- rtkwe 6mo ago
  Probably though the old pattern was that the plaintiffs would request and the Circuit would issue a nationwide injunction with the ruling when finding that a law in full unconstitutional. Now we have the weird situation where the constitution is more patchwork because you have to get rulings in all the Circuits or wait for one case to make it all the way to the Supreme Court.
  - rdbl27 6mo ago
    No, that was never the old pattern. Nationwide injunctions were unheard of until very recently -- as in, within the past 10-20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction
    - malfist 6mo ago
      Your own source says they've been common since 1960
      - dcrazy 6mo ago
        It doesn’t say that. It says that the D.C Court of Appeals issued one in 1963, and then quotes the DOJ as saying “ nationwide injunctions remained ‘exceedingly rare’ for a few decades after 1963[,]” notwithstanding one issued by a district judge in New York in 1973. Regardless of what you think about nationwide injunctions, your original assertion that “prior to this year,” a decision by a federal appellate court would apply the entire country is categorically false.

gmiller123456 6mo ago

Appeals court decisions generally only apply to their own jurisdiction. But they obviously hold a lot of weight when cited in others.

rtkwe 6mo ago

The ruling only has binding precedent in the 5th Circuit, other circuits aren't bound to follow it. Formerly this kind of ruling would come with a nationwide injunction to force the issue but now that those are severely curtailed by the Supreme Court it's only binding to the courts under the jurisdiction of the 5th circuit. Decisions in other circuits can be very persuasive to other circuits but they're not required to agree the same way a Supreme Court ruling is binding. Circuit splits are moderately common and usually trigger a review by the supreme court if an appeal wasn't filed for the earlier decisions.

rdbl27 6mo ago
Nationwide injunctions are a very recent legal innovation -- as in, extremely rare until the 2000s, and uncommon until the 2010s. They were not how this situation was handled for nearly all of the existence of the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_injunction
- rtkwe 6mo ago
  Seems like a perfectly valid one. If the government is violating the constitution or a persons rights why should there be suits all across the country to get that recognized? Especially when the question isn't on something with a lot of particularized tests that's sensitive to the exact case, eg 4th amendment law? Why should rights be so dependent on someone in my particular part of the country having sued?
  - hansvm 6mo ago
    On the other side, why should one crazed/corrupt judge in some state which has nothing to do with me be able to infringe on my freedoms and make my life worse? Worse, why is it possible to jurisdiction shop for the single bad actor and impose your will on the entire country? You're not wrong, but (like most issues in a 350M-person country) it's complicated. The system is tailored to some expected level/type of corruption and bad actors. If you expect that the government is basically fine and that out of 50M people per region surely somebody will file suit if the issue is important then the current system makes a lot of sense. You get judges with more knowledge and awareness of your local issues, anything important still gets addressed, and you're resilient to some degree of random bad judges and bad actors. If those expectations are out of whack then you get worse outcomes. In reality, the world is complicated enough that even boiling down the lists of judges and whatnot to that simple of a description is misleading at best. Neither solution is anywhere near optimal by itself. So...what next?

bluGill 6mo ago

Only the 5th court of appeals. However if you get caught elsewhere your lawyer will have a good appeal grounds just because your area will need to decide if they agree. If all areas eventually agree it probably never will get to the supreme court. Once several different courts hear this and make a decision if they disagree the supreme court jumps in reading all the logic of everyone below them to try to find a real answer. (It doesn't always work this way, that is the textbook ideal way, but the real world is often different). Note that unless you think nothing of spending 20 million dollars on lawyers this is probably not something that you want to fight.