Sandra Lea Lynch
How Judge Lynch decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
A content-based restriction on speech survives only if the government's own record actually supports the interest it invokes -- a plausible-sounding rationale (preventing vote buying) is not enough without evidence that the underlying harm has occurred.
“The legislative history of the bill does not contain any corroborated evidence of vote buying or voter coercion in New Hampshire during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.”
She distinguishes a genuinely disputed legal question from a merely mechanical calculation -- only the latter can be treated as already 'ascertained' for finality purposes.
“While computing the Social Security offset might have been a "mechanical task," determining whether it applied was not.”
Procedural preferences
On jurisdiction-stripping statutes she parses precisely which component of an agency decision is committed to discretion (and thus unreviewable) versus which rests on an objective, reviewable fact -- she declines the government's broader reading that would sweep in both.
“Section 309(c)(4)(E) does not bar all appeals from final orders in the types of cases described by the referenced statutory sections, but only bars appeals of "discretionary" decisions made under those sections.”
A live case-or-controversy is a continuing requirement, not a one-time filing threshold -- once a court can no longer give effectual relief, the case is dismissed as moot regardless of how the litigation started.
“When we can no longer "give any 'effectual relief' to the potentially prevailing party," we must dismiss the case.”
Cautions
An immigration judge's failure to make credibility or causal findings on a petitioner's own specific, individualized evidence -- as opposed to general country-conditions evidence -- forecloses meaningful appellate review and requires a remand, regardless of how the general evidence might otherwise cut.
“In the absence of such findings, coherent review of the agency decision, which we are required by statute to perform, is impossible.”
A missing factual finding on one necessary element blocks affirmance even where the agency's ultimate legal framework is otherwise sound -- the record must actually support each element, not just the reasoning that would apply if it were satisfied.
“We conclude that the factual record as it now stands does not answer the question of whether the state judge imposed some form of punishment on Griffiths in the case that was placed on file.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The petition for review is dismissed and the stay of deportation, which the INS did not oppose, is vacated.”
“The petition for review is dismissed and the stay of deportation is lifted. So ordered.”
“LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Juan Francisco Rojas-Reynoso, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, petitions for review of the April 20, 2000 decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing his appeal from the denial of his motion to reopen his deportation proceedings. We affirm that dismissal.”
“The order of the Board of Immigration Appeals is affirmed.”
“The order of the Board of Immigration Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to the BIA for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“Since petitioner could not have circumvented this clear statutory bar to his waiver application, remand for consideration of the application for waiver and adjustment of status would serve no useful purpose, and therefore his request is denied.”
“we dismiss Kolster's petition for review under the Immigration and Nationality Act for lack of jurisdiction.”
“Accordingly, we vacate the BIA's order and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“We deny Rony Lopez-Lopez's petition for review because there was substantial evidence before the IJ and BIA that Lopez-Lopez had failed to meet his burden to establish a nexus between his alleged persecution and a statutorily protected ground.”
Put Judge Lynch's record to work
Ezel drafts and answers grounded in this exact profile: how Judge Lynch actually rules, not a generic AI guess.
Opens in Ezel Pro. Every answer is grounded in Judge Lynch's own signed orders and cites them.