Panels are not selected randomly. Each circuit has their own methods, and very little information is out there on the subject. A big part of selection is the calendar of the particular judge. A busy judge is unlikely to be a fit for selection to the panel. Likewise, the 11th circuit may have 11 active judges, but they also have 9 senior judges. The senior judges set their own work threshold. So availability of senior judges is going to impact this equation substantially. Most of the 11th senior judges were republican appointees. I believe there are 2 Clinton + 1 Obama appointee.

Thomas presides over the 11th circuit, but that is mostly ceremonial. He will be the justice that emergency appeals are directed to from that circuit. Most people don't know that prior till about 90 years ago, the SCOTUS justices used to preside over cases in the lower courts. The one thing that a justice can do when presiding over a circuit is grant bail. Which is why it sucks that Roberts has the DC circuit - an uncucked justice could grant bail to j6 defendants.

Appellate courts do not try cases. So this court will only hear an appeal of the dismissal for now. Plenty of time for other fuckery by the district court judge, presuming an appeal reverses this judge's decision. It is possible, however, that Trump raises the issue of recusal on appeal as well. Would be nice to get a new judge. But this judge would have had to fuck up royally to have an appellate court determine it was improper not to recuse. And simply being an appointee of Bill Clinton is most certainly an insufficient basis for recusal. There would have to be more.

I honestly do not know what an appeals court will do here. We can blame SCOTUS for wanting to shaft a terrorist in Ashcroft v. Iqbal for the cluster fuck in the sufficiency of a complaint under rule 8. Which was built on the abomination case Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. We have seen quite a few Trump suits get tossed on this basis.

Ashcroft v. Iqbal - 556 U.S. 662, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009)

RULE:

Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), a pleading must contain a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief. The pleading standard Rule 8 announces does not require detailed factual allegations, but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation. To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face. A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable and plausible inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged, and does not allege a mere possibility.

FACTS:

Javaid Iqbal (hereinafter respondent) is a citizen of Pakistan and a Muslim. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks he was arrested in the United States on criminal charges and detained by federal officials. Respondent claims he was deprived of various constitutional protections while in federal custody. To redress the alleged deprivations, respondent filed a complaint against numerous federal officials, including John Ashcroft, the former Attorney General of the United States, and Robert Mueller, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As to these two petitioners, the complaint alleges that they adopted an unconstitutional policy that subjected respondent to harsh conditions of confinement on account of his race, religion, or national origin.

In the District Court petitioners raised the defense of qualified immunity and moved to dismiss the suit, contending the complaint was not sufficient to state a claim against them. The District Court denied the motion to dismiss, concluding the complaint was sufficient to state a claim despite petitioners' official status at the times in question. Petitioners brought an interlocutory appeal in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The court, without discussion, assumed it had jurisdiction over the order denying the motion to dismiss; and it affirmed the District Court's decision.

ISSUE:

Does a complaint need to be non-conclusory to sufficiently state a claim?

ANSWER:

Yes.

CONCLUSION:

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), a complaint must contain a "short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." "[D]etailed factual allegations" are not required, Twombly, 550 U.S., at 555, 127 S. Ct. 1955, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929, but the Rule does call for sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to "state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,". A claim has facial plausibility when the pleaded factual content allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Two working principles underlie Twombly. First, the tenet that a court must accept a complaint's allegations as true is inapplicable to threadbare recitals of a cause of action's elements, supported by mere conclusory statements. Second, determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim is context-specific, requiring the reviewing court to draw on its experience and common sense. A court considering a motion to dismiss may begin by identifying allegations that, because they are mere conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth. While legal conclusions can provide the complaint's framework, they must be supported by factual allegations. When there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.

Iqbal's pleadings do not comply with Rule 8 under Twombly. Several of his allegations--that petitioners agreed to subject him to harsh conditions as a matter of policy, solely on account of discriminatory factors and for no legitimate penological interest; that Ashcroft was that policy's "principal architect"; and that Mueller was "instrumental" in its adoption and execution--are conclusory and not entitled to be assumed true. Moreover, the factual allegations that the FBI, under Mueller, arrested and detained thousands of Arab Muslim men, and that he and Ashcroft approved the detention policy, do not plausibly suggest that petitioners purposefully discriminated on prohibited grounds. Given that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated by Arab Muslims, it is not surprising that a legitimate policy directing law enforcement to arrest and detain individuals because of their suspected link to the attacks would produce a disparate, incidental impact on Arab Muslims, even though the policy's purpose was to target neither Arabs nor Muslims. Even if the complaint's well-pleaded facts gave rise to a plausible inference that Iqbal's arrest was the result of unconstitutional discrimination, that inference alone would not entitle him to relief: His claims against petitioners rest solely on their ostensible policy of holding detainees categorized as "of high interest," but the complaint does not contain facts plausibly showing that their policy was based on discriminatory factors.

Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly - 550 U.S. 544, 127 S. Ct. 1955 (2007)

RULE:

While a complaint attacked by a Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do. Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.

FACTS:

Respondent subscribers to local telephone and Internet services brought an action against petitioner local exchange carriers, alleging that the carriers engaged in parallel conduct to preclude competition in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.S. § 1. The District Court dismissed the complaint, concluding that parallel business conduct allegations, taken alone, do not state a claim under § 1; plaintiffs must allege additional facts tending to exclude independent self-interested conduct as an explanation for the parallel actions. U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, however, held that the subscribers sufficiently stated a claim.

ISSUE:

Did the respondent subscribers sufficiently state a claim under § 1 of the Sherman Act?

ANSWER:

No.

CONCLUSION:

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the subscribers' allegations that the carriers engaged in certain parallel conduct unfavorable to competition, absent some factual context suggesting agreement, were insufficient to state a claim under § 1 of the Sherman Act. According to the Court, to state such a violation, allegations of parallel conduct were required to be placed in a factual context which raised a plausible suggestion of a preceding agreement rather than identical independent action. Further, the Court posited that the subscribers' complaint did not indicate that the carriers' resistance to competitors was anything more than the natural, unilateral reaction of each carrier which was intent on keeping its regional dominance. Moreover, the alleged anti-competitive conduct of the carriers itself indicated that a carrier's attempt to compete in another carrier's market would not be profitable.