Posted by Orin Kerr:
Reinhardt and Kozinski Duke It Out in *United States v. Cruz*:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_02_08-2009_02_14.shtml#1234323821
If you're interested in some engaging opinion-writing, check out the
majority and dissenting opinions in [1]United States v. Cruz, a
criminal case on whether the jury had sufficient evidence to conclude
that the defendant was an "Indian" for the purposes of a federal
criminal statute. Judge Reinhardt (joined by Judge Thomas) concludes
that it was plain error to conclude that there was sufficient
evidence, and thus the verdict must be overturrned. Judge Kozinski
blows a gasket in dissent, ending with this paragraph:
The majority engages in vigorous verbal callisthenics to reach a
wholly counter-intuitive�and wrong�result. Along the way, it mucks
up several already complex areas of the law and does grave injury
to our plain error standard of review. I hasten to run in the other
direction.
Judge Kozinski's dissent is classic Kozinski, although if parts of
it had been left as a VC comment, I would have deleted it and warned
commenter "EZRider" to be civil or not comment at all. ("Worse still,
after huffing and puffing for 11 hefty paragraphs and 12 chubby
footnotes. . . " Sheesh.)
Thanks to [2]How Appealing for the link.
References
1. http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/02/10/0730384.pdf
2. http://howappealing.law.com/021009.html#032537
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