The second half of Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner’s provocative and essential Green Bag essay on the federal judiciary is out, here. (First part here.)

Third Circuit enthusiasts, take note:

It is not merely nostalgia that reserves the adjective “great” for a bare handful of Justices all dead, all of whom were pragmatic, moral, and in a nonpartisan sense “political”: Marshall, Holmes, Brandeis, Cardozo, Hughes, Jackson, the two Harlans, perhaps a few others (Story? Black? Rehnquist? Frankfurter?).16

16 And on the lower courts Traynor, Friendly, L. Hand, Kozinski, Boudin, Leval, Wisdom, Leventhal, Wilkinson, Magruder, C. Fried, Wyzanski, Weinstein, Vanderbilt, Becker, Higginbotham, Edwards, Shaw, Liu, Linde, Katzmann, Ambro – and many others.

I count only four active circuit judges in that footnote, including Judge Ambro.

H/T: How Appealing.