Judge Sandra Ikuta has been a stalwart conservative on the Ninth Circuit since joining that court in 2006. In addition to the much-deserved praise from her former law clerk Ben Flowers, I am pleased to call attention to this extensive tribute from Eric Tung, who has recently been confirmed to be her successor on the Ninth Circuit. From his introduction:
Few jurists have been as effective as Judge Sandra Ikuta in upholding our country’s rule of law. For two decades, she has sought to interpret our laws with fidelity to their text and history. True to her job as a circuit judge, she also has insisted on the binding nature of Supreme Court precedent, reminding us that Supreme Court holdings are rules to follow, not mere suggestions to be subverted. We may be tempted to hold in high regard those judges who declare grand visions or innovations in the law in the manner of an enlightened philosopher. Some may even praise the disregard of law for what they perceive as a greater good. But good judges do their jobs by guarding (not transcending) the law. They serve the public best by holding fast to their station, conveying basic principles of our constitutional order entrusted to us by our forebears with a clarity that helps us recover what we may have forgotten.
By that measure, Judge Ikuta stands among the greats. The division between judging and lawmaking is integral to the scheme of separated powers devised by our Founders and upon which our republic was built. With the strength of her formidable intellect, Judge Ikuta has been doing her part to hold up the structure. She has consistently enforced the limits of the judicial role, adhered to the Constitution as understood by the people who ratified it, and read statutes according to their plain meaning—rather than deviate from the text in favor of policy goals. All this she has done patiently, in case after case, as one mends fences, without splash or fanfare, without seeking fame or honor; for her, it seems, a duty discharged is its own reward.
Judge Ikuta’s writings evince a fiercely intelligent and independent mind. They combine certain elements that have made her a force on the bench: her razor-like logic cutting through the tangle of arguments; the authorities she convincingly marshals, which leave little to no room for rebuttal; her presentation of the facts so lucid and thorough (for she would know the record cold) that by the time one gets through just the facts, the outcome often presents itself as inevitable. Soon after joining the bench, Judge Ikuta earned a reputation as an honest, hardworking jurist who analyzed arguments with rigor and articulated her holdings with precision. Small wonder that, time and again, her views (often in dissent) have been vindicated by the Supreme Court.
We also learn from Tung that Judge Ikuta
charted an unconventional path to the judiciary. Before law school, she created and wrote for the magazine, “Martial Arts Movies,” which included interviews with Chuck Norris and Jackie Chan. (Makes sense, then, why her dissents could pack so much punch and land like roundhouse kicks.)