In Re Amendment of Rule 3

This court has adopted, on an experimental basis, a screening procedure for the processing of appeals, including administrative reviews. The purpose of this procedure is twofold: (1) to enable the court to decide, on an expedited basis, appeals which are of such a nature that oral argument would not be of assistance to the court, and (2) to assist the court in deciding appeals in which one party is not represented by counsel, by having a law clerk prepare in each such case, in advance of submission, a research memorandum dealing with the substantial issues.

The adoption of this procedure is manifested by the following documents, copies of which are attached hereto: (1) Resolution on Screening Procedures, (2) Ninth Circuit Screening Procedure [Appendix A to the resolution], and (3) Amendment of Rule 3, Rules of the Ninth Circuit [Appendix B to the resolution], This per curiam opinion is the Appendix C referred to in paragraph 6 of the attached resolution.

As indicated by the following table, the number of appeals (including administrative review proceedings and original writ matters) filed in this court has been steadily and substantially increasing year by year:

(1969 Annual…