Court of Appeals Decisively Overturns Silly Panel Decision in Flynn Case, 8-2
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I blew the prediction on the panel decision, giving Judge Henderson far too much credit. (I never gave Judge Rao any, nor did she deserve it.) But I did make this prediction:
I should have stayed out of the prediction business with this panel decision, and I should not be making further predictions on the case, but here is my prediction on the case. The full court will stay this order, rehear the case en banc, and reverse the decision.
Bada bing, bada boom. 8-2. Meaning the only two people who stuck up for the dishonest panel decision were the two judges in the majority in the dishonest panel decision.
The lesson here is that this was not a hard case. Whether to dismiss the case is a tough call. Conventional wisdom says Judge Sullivan won’t deny the Government’s motion, and I agree he probably won’t, though I think there’s a decent argument he should. But no matter what you think about the merits, this was never a valid case for mandamus. Never! Only partisans and people who had totally lost their perspective (there’s almost complete overlap there, by the way) thought that the dishonest panel decision made any sense. It never did, and today the rule of law was restored for a brief moment. Hats off to the en banc panel.
And stop paying attention to the partisans who told you to expect a different result.