Nine western states, two Pacific territories, and one appellate court standing between every conviction and the Supreme Court: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reviews federal judgments entered everywhere from the Mexican border to the Arctic. The appeal is a different proceeding in a different court — with its own rules, its own judges, and its own ways of being won.
This guide explains federal criminal appeals in the Ninth Circuit — the court, the eleven jurisdictions it covers, the fifteen district courts beneath it, and how an appeal moves from the notice of appeal to decision. The work is led by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, who has briefed and argued more than 100 federal appeals and is admitted to and has appeared in the Ninth Circuit as one of all twelve federal circuit courts of appeals to which she belongs, along with the U.S. Supreme Court; she appears pro hac vice nationwide, and our firm handles federal criminal appeals across the circuit, from San Diego to Anchorage. This page is part of our federal courts directory; for the appellate process in depth, start with our federal criminal appeals hub.
If you were convicted in a federal district court anywhere in the nine western states, Guam, or the Northern Mariana Islands, we offer a paid, one-hour initial consultation to walk through the record, the fourteen-day appeal deadline, and the issues a Ninth Circuit panel would actually review.
Table of Contents
Quick Answer: Ninth Circuit Appeals
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What does the Ninth Circuit cover? | Federal appeals from Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The court is headquartered in San Francisco. |
| How long do I have to file an appeal? | Fourteen days from entry of judgment for most criminal appellants — the deadline set by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b). |
| Is an appeal a new trial? | No. The panel works from the district court record alone, asking whether legal error occurred — it never rehears witnesses or evidence. |
| Who decides the appeal? | A three-judge panel. When the court goes en banc, an eleven-judge limited en banc court — the Chief Judge plus ten active judges drawn by lot — rehears the case, a procedure unique to the Ninth Circuit. |
| Is the firm admitted to the Ninth Circuit? | Yes. Elizabeth Franklin-Best is a member of the Ninth Circuit’s bar — as she is of every other federal circuit — and our firm briefs appeals arising from all fifteen of its district courts. |
Key Takeaways
- The Ninth Circuit hears federal appeals from nine western states plus Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, and is headquartered in San Francisco, with courthouses in Pasadena, Portland, and Seattle.
- With 29 authorized judgeships, it is the largest federal court of appeals and carries one of the heaviest criminal caseloads in the country.
- Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b) gives most criminal appellants fourteen days from entry of judgment to file the notice of appeal.
- Briefs and the record decide the appeal; when argument is granted, a three-judge panel hears it in San Francisco, Pasadena, Portland, or Seattle.
- The Ninth Circuit is the only federal circuit that rehears cases through an eleven-judge limited en banc court — the Chief Judge plus ten active judges drawn by lot — rather than the full bench.
- In United States v. Duarte (2025), the en banc court upheld the federal felon-in-possession statute as applied to non-violent felons; the Supreme Court declined review in January 2026, leaving a circuit split alive.
- Ninth Circuit courts granted 31.0% of compassionate-release motions in fiscal year 2025 — the highest rate of any federal circuit in U.S. Sentencing Commission data.
- Review is limited to legal error, filtered through standards of review that differ issue by issue.
- Fifteen district courts feed the circuit’s docket — more than any other circuit — and each has its own guide on this site.
- Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and to the bars of all eleven other federal circuits.
The Ninth Circuit at a Glance
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is the federal appellate court for Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, along with Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. It hears appeals from the federal district courts across that vast territory, and the court is headquartered in San Francisco, with courthouses in Pasadena, Portland, and Seattle.
The Ninth Circuit is the largest of the federal circuits — by population, by geography, and by its 29 authorized judgeships, more than any other federal appellate court — and it carries one of the heaviest criminal caseloads in the country. Its territory includes a long stretch of the southwestern border, generating substantial volumes of immigration and drug prosecutions, alongside the full range of federal criminal matters, including white-collar offenses, firearms cases, and public corruption. Its decisions are binding precedent on the district courts within the circuit.
Anyone convicted in a district court within these jurisdictions will have the case reviewed on direct appeal by a randomly drawn three-judge panel of this court. Rehearing en banc exists here in a form found nowhere else — the eleven-judge limited en banc court described below — and that structural quirk shapes appellate strategy from the first brief onward.
How a Federal Criminal Appeal Proceeds
The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure supply the spine of a Ninth Circuit criminal appeal, and the circuit’s local rules and General Orders add the detail practitioners have to know. The stages below shape every case.
An appeal begins with a notice of appeal, which in a criminal case must generally be filed within fourteen days of the entry of the judgment under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b). Miss it and the right to appeal can evaporate, so the moment to consult appellate counsel is at sentencing — or earlier.
With the record assembled, briefing begins. The opening brief carries the appellant’s entire case — the claimed errors, the record support, and the law; the government answers; the reply takes the last written word. In a court managing calendars this heavy, the written work is usually what decides the appeal.
Oral argument, when granted, takes place before a three-judge panel at one of the circuit’s West Coast courthouses. The panel’s written decision can affirm, reverse, vacate, or remand; after that come the rehearing options discussed below and, finally, a writ of certiorari petition to the Supreme Court.
An appeal is not a retrial. The Ninth Circuit does not hear witnesses or weigh evidence anew; it reviews the district court record for legal error, applying defined standards of review — questions of law de novo, factual findings for clear error, and sentencing decisions for reasonableness under the abuse-of-discretion framework of Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38 (2007). Issues no one raised in the district court face the demanding plain-error test of United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725 (1993). Identifying the issues that fit those standards is the core of effective appellate work. Our guides to the federal appellate process and the grounds for a federal appeal explain this in detail.
Applied Insight: A large circuit produces a large body of precedent, and panels do not always read it the same way. In a court the size of the Ninth Circuit, locating the most favorable line of authority — and distinguishing the unfavorable cases — is a substantial part of the work. Thorough legal research is not optional; it is where many of these appeals are won.
The Limited En Banc Court: How the Ninth Circuit Rehears Cases
Every federal circuit allows rehearing en banc, but the Ninth Circuit conducts it differently than any other court in the country. Under 28 U.S.C. § 46(c), a court of appeals with more than fifteen active judgeships may perform its en banc function through a subset of its members rather than the full bench. With 29 authorized judgeships, the Ninth Circuit is the only circuit that uses this option: its limited en banc court consists of the Chief Judge and ten additional active judges drawn by lot.
The sequence matters for anyone weighing the next step after a panel loss. A petition for rehearing — governed since December 1, 2024 by a consolidated Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 40, which absorbed the old Rule 35 en banc petition — asks the panel to reconsider or the full court to vote on en banc review. If a majority of the active, non-recused judges votes to take the case, the eleven-judge limited en banc court rehears it, and its decision binds every panel and every district court in the circuit.
Because eleven judges drawn by lot will not always mirror the views of the whole 29-judgeship court, Ninth Circuit en banc practice carries an element of chance that exists nowhere else in the federal system. That reality shapes strategy: whether to seek rehearing at all, how to frame the petition, and when the better course is to proceed directly toward a petition for certiorari.
Ninth Circuit Criminal Law in Motion (2023–2026)
The circuit’s most closely watched criminal decision of recent years is United States v. Duarte, 137 F.4th 743 (9th Cir. 2025) (en banc), which held that the federal felon-in-possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), is constitutional as applied to non-violent felons. The en banc court concluded that people with felony convictions remain among “the people” protected by the Second Amendment, but that the Nation’s historical tradition supports their categorical disarmament. The Supreme Court denied certiorari on January 20, 2026, so Duarte now controls firearms appeals throughout the circuit — even though the national picture remains divided: the Third Circuit’s en banc decision in Range v. Attorney General, 124 F.4th 218 (3d Cir. 2024), sustained an as-applied challenge by a non-violent offender, and the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Diaz, 116 F.4th 458 (5th Cir. 2024), examines predicate offenses through its own historical analysis. The Supreme Court’s most recent word on felon-and-firearm questions did not disturb that landscape: in United States v. Hemani, No. 24-1234 (U.S. June 18, 2026), the Court held 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) unconstitutional as applied to a regular marijuana user but expressly declined to decide the § 922(g)(1) felon-in-possession question — so Duarte stands and the circuit split over non-violent felons remains live. The issue is worth preserving in any Ninth Circuit firearms appeal in case the Court resolves it in a later case.
On the white-collar side, Ninth Circuit panels are now applying the Supreme Court’s reshaped fraud doctrine — Ciminelli v. United States, 598 U.S. 306 (2023), which abolished the right-to-control theory of wire fraud, and Kousisis v. United States, 605 U.S. 114 (2025), which approved fraudulent-inducement prosecutions while confirming that materiality is the doctrine’s real limit. For appeals from white-collar convictions anywhere in the circuit, these decisions define which theories of guilt remain valid and which jury instructions are now contestable.
Compassionate Release and Post-Conviction Review in the Ninth Circuit
A Ninth Circuit affirmance does not exhaust the avenues for relief. Motions for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) are filed in the district of conviction, and the circuit’s gatekeeping rules matter: in United States v. Keller, 2 F.4th 1278 (9th Cir. 2021), the court held that the statute’s exhaustion requirement is a mandatory claim-processing rule that a district court must enforce when the government raises it — so the 30-day request to the warden has to be done right before the motion is filed.
The circuit-level data are striking. The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s fiscal year 2025 data report shows that courts within the Ninth Circuit granted 31.0% of compassionate-release motions (72 of 232 decided) — the highest rate of any circuit and more than double the national rate of 14.1%. A grant rate decides no individual case, but it reflects a bench receptive to well-supported motions. One limit now applies nationwide: under Rutherford v. United States (U.S. May 28, 2026), nonretroactive changes in sentencing law are not extraordinary and compelling reasons, and arguments that the conviction or sentence is itself unlawful belong in a § 2255 or other post-conviction proceeding rather than a compassionate-release motion.
District Courts in the Ninth Circuit
The Ninth Circuit’s docket is fed by fifteen district courts — stretching from Phoenix to Saipan — and every one of them has its own researched guide:
- District of Alaska
- District of Arizona
- Central District of California
- Eastern District of California
- Northern District of California
- Southern District of California
- District of Hawaii
- District of Idaho
- District of Montana
- District of Nevada
- District of Oregon
- Eastern District of Washington
- Western District of Washington
- District of Guam
- District of the Northern Mariana Islands
A conviction in any of these fifteen district courts is appealed to the Ninth Circuit. We handle trial-level federal defense in these districts, appeals to the circuit, and post-conviction matters — including compassionate release — filed in the district of conviction.
Why Our Firm for a Ninth Circuit Appeal
The Ninth Circuit’s size is the defining fact of practice before it: 29 judgeships produce more criminal precedent each year than any other circuit, and an appeal often turns on knowing which line of that authority controls. Our practice is built for exactly that work. Elizabeth Franklin-Best, our principal attorney, holds the 2026 “Best Lawyer” recognition in Appellate Practice from Best Lawyers in America, and Chambers USA 2026 ranks her for Litigation: White-Collar Crime & Government Investigations — the field that generates many of the circuit’s most complex appeals.
She is also the author of Reversing Your Criminal Conviction, and the method in that book — disciplined issue selection, honest assessment of the standard of review, and complete command of the record — is how every Ninth Circuit brief in this office gets written. We do not promise results in any court; what we offer is appellate work calibrated to a circuit where the volume of precedent rewards depth over breadth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which states does the Ninth Circuit cover?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit hears appeals from the federal district courts in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, as well as Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. It is headquartered in San Francisco.
How long do I have to appeal a federal conviction in the Ninth Circuit?
Fourteen days from the entry of judgment, set by Rule 4(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. District courts have only limited power to enlarge that window, and counting on an extension is a gamble no appellant should take — involve appellate counsel before it closes.
Does the Ninth Circuit hear new evidence on appeal?
No. The court decides an appeal on the record made in the district court — the transcripts, exhibits, and rulings below. Witnesses do not testify again and new evidence is not introduced. The judges ask one question: did the district court commit legal error, judged under the standard of review that applies to each issue.
Who decides a Ninth Circuit appeal?
A randomly assigned three-judge panel decides the appeal in the first instance. If the court grants rehearing en banc, the case is reheard by an eleven-judge limited en banc court — the Chief Judge plus ten active judges drawn by lot — a procedure no other circuit uses. After the circuit rules, the remaining step is a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Is the Ninth Circuit really the largest circuit?
Yes. With 29 authorized judgeships, the Ninth Circuit has more judges than any other federal court of appeals, and its territory stretches from the Arctic to the Mexican border and across the Pacific to Guam. That size produces an enormous body of precedent, which makes careful issue selection and research especially important on appeal.
What can the Ninth Circuit do with my case?
The panel can affirm the conviction and sentence, reverse, vacate, or remand for further proceedings such as resentencing. Which outcome is realistic depends on the strength of the issues preserved in the district court record and on the standard of review the court applies to each of them.
Is the firm admitted to practice in the Ninth Circuit?
Yes. Elizabeth Franklin-Best is admitted to the Ninth Circuit’s bar — and to the U.S. Supreme Court and every other federal circuit court of appeals — and our firm handles Ninth Circuit criminal appeals arising from districts throughout the western states and the Pacific territories.
Does the firm also handle district court cases in the Ninth Circuit?
Yes. Working with local counsel and pro hac vice admission where needed, we represent federal defendants in the fifteen district courts of the Ninth Circuit — from the Central District of California to the District of Guam — at trial, at sentencing, on appeal, and in post-conviction proceedings. Each district has its own guide on this site.
What is the Ninth Circuit’s limited en banc court?
Federal law allows a court of appeals with more than fifteen judgeships to rehear cases en banc through a subset of its judges, and the Ninth Circuit is the only court that does this. Its limited en banc court consists of the Chief Judge and ten additional active judges drawn by lot, so eleven judges speak for the entire circuit when a panel decision is reheard.
Did United States v. Duarte change felon-in-possession law in the Ninth Circuit?
It settled it, at least for now. Sitting en banc in 2025, the Ninth Circuit held in United States v. Duarte that 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is constitutional as applied to people with non-violent prior felonies, and the Supreme Court declined to review the case on January 20, 2026. The Court’s June 2026 decision in United States v. Hemani struck down a different subsection, Section 922(g)(3), as applied to a marijuana user but pointedly did not decide the felon-in-possession question, so Duarte still governs and the split among the circuits remains open. Because other circuits read the Second Amendment more favorably to defendants, the issue is still worth preserving in a Ninth Circuit firearms appeal.
How often is compassionate release granted in the Ninth Circuit?
At the highest rate in the country in the most recent data. The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s fiscal year 2025 figures show that courts within the Ninth Circuit granted about 31 percent of compassionate-release motions, against a national rate of just over 14 percent. Every motion still must establish extraordinary and compelling reasons, and after the Supreme Court’s May 2026 decision in Rutherford, a nonretroactive change in sentencing law alone does not qualify.
How much federal appellate experience does the firm have?
Federal appeals are the heart of the practice. Elizabeth Franklin-Best has briefed and argued more than 100 federal appeals and is admitted to all twelve federal circuits and the U.S. Supreme Court, appearing pro hac vice across the country. She wrote Reversing Your Criminal Conviction and carries 2026 recognition from Best Lawyers in America in Appellate Practice and from Chambers USA in white-collar criminal litigation. Outcomes turn on the facts of each case, but that volume of appellate experience is what we bring to a Ninth Circuit appeal.
Talk With a Ninth Circuit Appeals Lawyer
Whether your conviction came out of Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle, Honolulu, or any other district in the circuit, the fourteen-day window for a notice of appeal moves quickly. In a paid, one-hour initial consultation, we evaluate the record the way a Ninth Circuit panel will — issue by issue, standard of review by standard of review — and give you a candid assessment of the appeal.