9th Circuit Maintains Reversal Record : High court: U.S. justices overturn 10 of 13 rulings liberal-leaning bench made. In previous years, rate has been worse for California-based jurists.

The Supreme Court term that ended Thursday provided another string of reversals for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, whose liberal-leaning rulings are regularly overturned by the conservative justices who dominate the high court.

On matters as varied as prisoners’ rights, child pornography, welfare benefits and drug testing, the high court threw out decisions from the 9th Circuit, which is based in California. The Supreme Court heard arguments in 13 cases from the 9th Circuit and reversed 10 of them.

“The 9th Circuit hasn’t fared very well,” said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who follows both courts. “But other years it’s been even worse.”

In the first written opinion of the term, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that drug kingpins could be convicted of conspiracy based on evidence that they arranged to ship or sell drugs. This overturned a ruling by the 9th Circuit, which had barred conspiracy prosecutions on the West Coast unless it could be proved that the drug dealers took “an overt act” to carry out the arrangement.

In the term’s final week, the high court ruled, 6 to 3, that student athletes could be forced to undergo urine testing for drugs. This reversed a 9th Circuit opinion in an Oregon case that “children do not lose their right to privacy” at school.

Besides reversing the 9th Circuit on the 10 cases, the Supreme Court also issued orders overruling the court on two other significant issues.

Last week it threw out a 9th Circuit ruling in an Idaho case that declared unconstitutional a student-led graduation prayer. While the Supreme Court refused again to rule finally on that issue, its members apparently did not want to leave standing an appellate ruling that flatly prohibited student-led prayers.

In another order in January, the Supreme Court threw out a 9th Circuit ruling that barred California from paying lower welfare benefits for one year to new residents.

The 9th Circuit is by far the largest of the 11 regional appeals courts in the federal system. Its 28 judges hear cases from California, Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Its judges hear cases each month in San Francisco, Pasadena, Portland and Seattle.

During the late 1970s, the court won a liberal reputation when President Jimmy Carter filled 15 seats on the bench, whose membership was expanding.

“It was an unusual situation because you had a strong influx of liberal judges come on all at one time,” says University of Pittsburgh law professor Arthur D. Hellman, an expert on the federal appeals courts.

Carter had no chance to name anyone to the Supreme Court, which had only appointees made by Republicans from 1969 to 1993.

The ideological gap between the Supreme Court and the West Coast appeals court gained wide attention in 1984, when the justices reversed 22 consecutive rulings.

Since then the gap has closed considerably, legal experts say, because of the retirement of some Carter appointees and the arrival of a solid core of judges named by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.

“It looks like they have a poor record compared to other circuits, but I’d be careful about suggesting the 9th Circuit is out of line,” said Hellman. “Sometimes it’s a matter of the Supreme Court changing the law.”

He cited a recent ruling that narrowed the right of prison inmates. The 9th Circuit had ruled that prison officials in Hawaii had violated an inmate’s rights by sending him to solitary confinement without a full hearing on misconduct charges. Judge Stephen Reinhardt of Los Angeles, a prominent liberal and a Carter appointee, wrote the opinion.

But Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, speaking for a 5-4 majority, reversed that ruling in Sandin vs. Conner, and said that punishments stemming from the “ordinary incidents of prison life” did not violate the Constitution. Experts who follow prison law say Rehnquist revised the law to cut down on what he considered to be frivolous lawsuits filed by prisoners.

Among other key decisions from this term, the high court reinstated a federal child pornography law, said that California need not give annual parole hearings to long-term inmates and ruled that state officials may reduce welfare benefits to large households.

In a surprising victory, the high court upheld a 9th Circuit ruling that barred cities from zoning out group homes for alcoholics and the disabled. The court also affirmed a 9th Circuit ruling requiring prosecutors to prove before a jury that a defendant’s false statements on a government application were “material” and significant.