I posted yesterday about Javier v. AG, explaining my view that the opinion hadn’t addressed a key question, and that the answer to that question might cast doubt on the holding. Any time I express doubts about a panel opinion, I’m interested to see how things play out as far as rehearing  — will it be sought, will the rehearing petition raise arguments along similar lines as my post, how will the court rule?

But, in this case, the court already denied rehearing. Recall that Javier originally was issued back in June as non-precedential. Javier filed for panel and en banc rehearing, two days after the government filed to publish the opinion. The court denied panel and en banc rehearing on July 7, almost a month before the panel re-issued the opinion as precedential.

Which raises a question interesting to appellate procedure nerds — did the non-panel judges who voted to deny rehearing en banc know at the time they voted that the opinion would be precedential? Should it matter? Do judges casting en banc votes scrutinize precedential opinions more closely? I think they should, and I bet many do.

Now, I don’t know what internal procedures the Third Circuit follows when petitions for rehearing and motions to publish are both pending, and I’m not suggesting that anyone did anything wrong here.

But in my view the better practice would be for a panel to rule on the motion to publish and issue the precedential panel opinion before the court votes on the en banc rehearing petition. (I recognize this might require some tweaking of IOP 9.5.) En banc rehearing votes should be — and should appear to be — fully informed and free of any potential for manipulation by the panel.