For nearly four years, there was a never-ending drumbeat about how the Fifth Circuit was an existential threat to the rule of law. Yet, over the past two months or so, it has gotten very quiet. That giant sucking sound you hear, as Ross Perot might have said, is all of the cases flooding north to the First and Fourth Circuits.
Yet, the Fifth Circuit remains the most interesting circuit in the country. I recently blogged about an unpublished opinion concerning Planned Parenthood. I suggested that the panel's choice to make the opinion unpublished was an attempt to shield the case from en banc review.
Another case raises some similar issues.
