Rating appellate judges is a little like shooting at moving targets. They do their work not alone, but in parts and panels. Most opinions are unsigned. And since panels vary case-by-case and part assignments year-to-year, the collective body of decisional law tends to mask individual judges’ dispensations and proclivities.
To a large extent, the judiciary wants it that way. The whole theory of sending appeals to groups of judges rather than single ones is that deliberation and consensus weeds out misconceptions, prejudices and occasional astigmatism.
