At this point I don't think they are sitting on it. A quick look at appeals courts typically take 6 months as the average to render a decision after all briefs and hearings have been submitted and been held. No clue if 4ca is above or below average.
IIRC the hearing was in December, so we are only sitting around 6 months now. Lots and lots of decisions take a year. Writing decisions, especially if they want them to be GOOD decisions takes a long time. Especially because you have 3 judges involved who may want their own say in what is in the decision. At a minimum, two of them are going to have input.
I am impatient as heck, but if we hear before the end of the summer I'll be surprised. Generally "no rights for you" decisions get written much faster. Doesn't make me happy that it might be another 3-6 months before we hear. And then if we win, the state will appeal for an en banc, which I half imagine 4ca will grant based on their composition, which will add another 6-18 months for briefings, hearings, and a decision.
Enter my opinion it'll be 2-3 SCOTUS terms before SCOTUS gives us the final decision. In some ways an appeals court decision against us would speed it up because we could appeal directly to SCOTUS and skip an en banc appeal. Always possible the larger 4ca denies an en banc because they don't want to put all their names on something SCOTUS might slap upside their head.
reasoning.
