‘The Petri dish for the latest unhinged legal theory’: the powerful appeals court feeding the SCOTUS docket [Video]

By now, we’re all familiar with the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority, which has pushed American jurisprudence far to the right in recent years. But little attention has been paid to the conservative 5th Circuit, which has played an outsized role in shaping the Supreme Court’s docket. “It’s the Petri dish for whatever the latest unhinged theory is,” according to Leah Litman, University of Michigan Law School professor. Through an assortment of dubious legal maneuvers, the Fifth Circuit has become a testing ground for conservative legal theories and politicized cases – sending a record number to the Supreme Court. “This is a system that is actually rigged,” says Washington Post Associate Editor Ruth Marcus.June 16, 2024