Split Circuit: Seventh Circuit Debate Over Judicial Internet Research Ends In A Tie

The results are in this afternoon in the Seventh Circuit's vote to rehear en banc Rowe v. Gibson, No. 14-3316 (Aug. 19, 2015), and it was a close one, a 4-4 tie, which means that the majority's opinion stands, though not without an extraordinary exercise in defensiveness by the panel majority (but more on that below).

A vote of the majority of the judges in regular active service on the Seventh Circuit was required to rehear the case en banc, leaving the petitioner one vote short.

There are currently nine judges in regular active service on the court, but Judge Joel Flaum did not participate in the vote, creating the potential for a deadlocked court since there were only eight votes left to be cast. Judges Frank Easterbrook, Michael Kanne, Diane Sykes, and David Hamilton (the last of whom wrote a stinging dissent in Rowe) voted to rehear the case en banc. Chief Judge Diane Wood and Judges Richard Posner, Ilana Diamond Rovner, and Anne Claire Williams voted to