{"id":144881,"date":"2026-02-26T15:43:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T23:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/02\/26\/fifth-circuit-judges-begin-erasing-dissenting-opinions-they-dont-like\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:43:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T23:43:58","slug":"fifth-circuit-judges-begin-erasing-dissenting-opinions-they-dont-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/02\/26\/fifth-circuit-judges-begin-erasing-dissenting-opinions-they-dont-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifth Circuit Judges Begin Erasing Dissenting Opinions They Don\u2019t Like"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judge James Dennis was a member of the original panel, concurring in part and dissenting in part from the panel opinion. See Woodlands Pride, Inc. v. Paxton, 157 F.4th 775, 789\u2013803 (5th Cir. 2025) (Dennis, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Judge Dennis took inactive status from the Court on February 23, 2026, and therefore did not participate in this decision to withdraw and substitute the panel opinion. This case is decided by a quorum under 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 46(d).<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, joined by Judge Leslie Southwick, writing for a\u2026 unanimous?\u2026 2-0 panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. This opinion was issued in November<\/a>, with the judges ruling that Texas could enforce its ban on drag performances while litigation continued. But it included a partial dissent from Judge James Dennis that called out the majority\u2019s sloppy reasoning, misapprehending applicable law and disregarding \u201cunrebutted testimony and record evidence.\u201d So, with Judge Dennis taking inactive status \u2014 the following February \u2014 they just purged his opinion. Gabriel Malor caught the new edit<\/a>, noting that the result was unchanged and \u201cthe only things they added were a footnote on the Fourteenth Amendment claims and a paragraph expanding on facial challenges.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Fifth Circuit Judges Begin Erasing Dissenting Opinions They Don\u2019t Like<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Judge James Dennis was a member of the original panel, concurring in part and dissenting in part from the panel opinion. See Woodlands Pride, Inc. v. Paxton, 157 F.4th 775, 789\u2013803 (5th Cir. 2025) (Dennis, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Judge Dennis took inactive status from the Court on February 23, 2026, and therefore did not participate in this decision to withdraw and substitute the panel opinion. This case is decided by a quorum under 28 U.S.C. \u00a7 46(d).<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2014 Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, joined by Judge Leslie Southwick, writing for a\u2026 unanimous?\u2026 2-0 panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. This opinion was issued in November<\/a>, with the judges ruling that Texas could enforce its ban on drag performances while litigation continued. But it included a partial dissent from Judge James Dennis that called out the majority\u2019s sloppy reasoning, misapprehending applicable law and disregarding \u201cunrebutted testimony and record evidence.\u201d So, with Judge Dennis taking inactive status \u2014 the following February \u2014 they just purged his opinion. Gabriel Malor caught the new edit<\/a>, noting that the result was unchanged and \u201cthe only things they added were a footnote on the Fourteenth Amendment claims and a paragraph expanding on facial challenges.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Fifth Circuit Judges Begin Erasing Dissenting Opinions They Don\u2019t Like<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judge James Dennis was a member of the original panel, concurring in part and dissenting in part from the panel opinion. See Woodlands Pride, Inc. v. Paxton, 157 F.4th 775, 789\u2013803 (5th Cir. 2025) (Dennis, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Judge Dennis took inactive status from the Court on February 23, 2026, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}