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New in SCOTUSBlog: The justices should regularly sit on the lower courts

The chief justice should ask each circuit justice to preside over one en banc oral argument of his or her circuit.

Josh Blackman | 8.25.2026 10:27 AM

My latest installment in SCOTUSBlog calls for the return of circuit riding, with a twist:

Each term the circuit justices would be drawn at random to sit on the lower courts. The justices can pull a number out of a hat. No longer would the same justice preside over the same circuit year-after-year. Let the justices and the lower courts mix and mingle, to get the greatest flavor of how the judicial system........

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