Statistics and Splitting the Ninth Circuit

A friend of mine, Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt Law School, published an op-ed in the LA Times yesterday regarding whether a split of the Ninth Circuit would result in fewer "extreme" opinions.  He assumes that there are six "extreme" judges in the Ninth Circuit, and that a split will result in three "extreme" judges in each circuit.  Over at SCOTUSblog, we point out a number of problems with Brian's assumptions and calculations, see here.  Over at Volokh, Frank Cross weighs in on the issue here.