A federal appeals court judge on Monday criticized nationwide injunctions issued by lower federal courts, including the blockades of President Trump’s travel ban.
Speaking at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski criticized the “new phenomenon” of nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts.
“The Supreme Court has not addressed [it] but I think will be a bigger issue coming up and worth keeping an eye on, and that is the problem of nationwide injunctions,” Kozinski said about the travel ban litigation heading to the Supreme Court. “Of district judges, meaning a single judge in a court in a city in a circuit or in a state in a circuit in the country, issuing an injunction enjoining the federal government across the country.”
Kozinski, who was careful not to comment on the merits of the travel ban litigation moving through his circuit, said conservatives were happy to see such injunctions against the Obama administration but are unhappy now that the shoe is on the other foot.
“I think it’s a serious problem,” Kozinski said. “Essentially what this means is one judge in one circuit gets to control the law until the Supreme Court intervenes. This is contrary to two centuries of federal policy, which is the idea that you have dueling views in the lower courts before a matter percolates up to the Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court can choose among different views.”
Kozinski was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the western federal appeals court and served as a law clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy before Kennedy joined the nation’s highest court.
