William H. Pryor Jr.
How Judge Pryor rules, drawn from 72 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
How Judge Pryor decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
Congress's power to define and punish offenses against the law of nations was confined by customary international law, placing conduct outside that tradition beyond the clause's reach.
“The power granted to Congress in the Offences Clause is limited by customary international law for two reasons.”
The court declined to classify particular invocations by religious sect, treating that inquiry as outside judicial competence.
“Whether invocations of ‘Lord of Lords’ or ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Mohammed’ are ‘sectarian’ is best left to theologians, not courts of law.”
The ordinary meaning of a policy term was applied to the pleaded facts while leaving factually different versions of the same conduct unresolved.
“To be clear, we do not decide that the ordinary meaning of ‘suicide’ covers all imaginable instances of suicide-by-cop.”
In Finley, evidence of honest investigative mistakes did not support a claim of deliberate fabrication. The court examined contemporaneous communications and later testimony before affirming summary judgment.
“Fabrication requires bad faith.”
Procedural preferences
A request to declare that a defendant lacked a federal defense did not create federal-question jurisdiction over otherwise state-law claims.
“Because Patel’s request for a declaratory judgment does not fall within federal-question jurisdiction, we vacate the judgment against him and remand with instructions to dismiss his complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
A fugitive could not remain outside a family court's authority while using a separate lawsuit to attack those same proceedings.
“Because Vibe Ener remains a fugitive, her lawsuit collaterally attacks the very proceedings from which she absconded, and dismissal prevents her from using the judicial process only when it benefits her, we affirm.”
In his Russo concurrence, Pryor explained that severability concerns interpreting the statute in the case before the court; a judicial decree cannot repeal statutory text.
“Severability or separability is a question of statutory inter- pretation in a specific case.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“we vacate the judgment against him and remand with instructions to dismiss his complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
“We AFFIRM Bobal's conviction and sentence.”
“So we vacate in part and affirm in part.”
“we affirm the judgment in favor of the crew leaders.”
“we affirm.”
“we affirm.”
“we remand this appeal to the panel to decide whether Carson's suit is preempted.”
“We reinstate our previous opinion and affirm Andre Dubois's convictions and sentence.”
“we vacate its order and remand.”
“We dismiss the petition for lack of jurisdiction.”
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