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Abstract
This introductory chapter sets out the book's focus, namely the deterioration of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. These courts decide over fifty thousand cases per year, out of which the Supreme Court usually chooses to review fewer than one hundred. Thus, from the litigant's point of view, the decisions of the Courts of Appeals are, for all practical purposes, final—the last stop in the judicial system. While any significant change in so important an institution would be noteworthy, the change that this book treats is remarkable for additional reasons. First, it happened so quickly—over a span of only thirty years, one legal generation. Second, the shift occurred entirely at the impetus of the courts themselves, with no executive and very little legislative input. In other words, the radical shift is entirely of the judges' making. The third reason flows from the second; when stripped of all rhetoric, the reason for the change in the circuit courts is that the judges prefer the new arrangement. The fourth reason is that the change in the courts of appeals represents a major reallocation of government benefits, draining them from the routine middle-class litigants and lavishing them on the wealthiest and most powerful litigants. Finally, the revolution has attracted little attention from the legal profession and even less from the public and, amazingly, even less from the judges themselves. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
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