Kevin C. Newsom
How Judge Newsom rules, drawn from 53 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge Newsom
Kevin Christopher Newsom is a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Appointed by President Donald J. Trump, Judge Newsom received a commission on August 2, 2017.
Judge Newsom's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge Newsom's own (checked October 11, 2026), so the court's local rules and general orders are the place to look (court page ↗).
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 11, 2026).
How Judge Newsom decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In United States v. Brillhart, Newsom held that Google’s hash match was a private search and that agents’ later review of the same file did not reveal material information beyond that search, so it did not violate the Fourth Amendment.
“the government’s subsequent search of the file, which revealed no new material information, didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment.”
For personal jurisdiction over foreign defendants he treats constitutional reasonableness as a contextual, multifactor inquiry rather than a categorical rule.
“Any reasonableness assessment necessarily entails consideration of several factors, is context-dependent, and operates on a case-by-case basis.”
Procedural preferences
In Deltona Transformer v. Noco, Newsom reversed a false-advertising jury instruction because that theory had not been properly placed before the jury.
“the false-advertising claim wasn’t properly before the jury, the district court erred in giving a jury instruction on that theory.”
In Scott v. City of Daytona Beach, Newsom held that the district court exceeded its authority by issuing an injunction with effectively universal reach.
“the district court overstepped its authority when it issued what was, in effect, a universal injunction.”
In Marbury v. Warden III, he vacated summary judgment on the prisoner’s deliberate-indifference claim and left unresolved issues for the district court to address on remand.
“We are, after all, a court of review, not a court of first view.”
In Burton, the court treated the verified complaint as evidence capable of creating genuine factual disputes, requiring a trial rather than summary judgment.
“The facts contained in Burton’s verified complaint create such a dispute.”
In his Mt. Hawley concurrence, Newsom favored resolving the appeal on one sufficient jurisdictional ground and declined to join additional grounds.
“One is plenty; accord- ingly, I concur only in the majority’s ‘[f]irst’ reason, the discussion of which spans pages 5–6 of its opinion.”
In the Florida and Georgia social-media appeals, Newsom treated the associations as having standing but required stronger merits support for broad preliminary injunctions against state laws. Both injunctions were set aside while the standing rulings remained.
“we AFFIRM the district court’s determination that NetChoice has associational standing, VACATE the prelimi- nary injunction, and REMAND to the district court for proceedings”
Cautions
In a separate concurrence, Newsom declined to extend a recent Supreme Court statement about as-applied challenges to a broad range of First Amendment claims without clearer direction.
“I think it’s wise to await a clearer signal from the Supreme Court.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“The judgment of the Tax Court is AFFIRMED.”
“we affirm Munksgard's convictions and sentences. AFFIRMED”
“We lack jurisdiction to address its claim, and therefore AFFIRM the district court's dismissal of Flat Creek's complaint.”
“The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.”
“We REMAND this case to the panel for proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
“We therefore affirm the district court's ruling.”
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