Lie-O-Rama
Topic: CNSNews.com
Today's CNSNews.com "Fact-O-Rama" advances something that's not a fact: the claim -- promulgated by the Center for Individual Freedom -- that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “is definitively the most reversed federal appellate court in the country and requires far more attention from the Supreme Court than any other inferior court."

CNS cites an article in a publication called InsideCounsel for the CFIF's claim. But if its "Fact-O-Rama" editor had read further down in that article, he would have found the following:

“It is not true any longer that the 9th gets overturned with more frequency,” says Jesse Choper, a professor of corporate and constitutional law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law. “A lot of the criticism—which is often quite partisan—is based on inaccurate facts.”

While the 9th Circuit has more reversals on a numerical basis, it also handles far more cases than any other federal circuit court, so that is not an accurate basis upon which to judge the circuit. On the basis of percentage of cases appealed to the Supreme Court that are reversed -- a more reliable indicator -- the 9th Circuit is, in fact, near the average for all federal circuits.

Strangely, though CNS cites from the CFIF study, it doesn't provide a link to it. A quick search of the CFIF website didn't uncover it.