> appeals courts exist as a check on injustice in lower court rulings. They do try to objectively verify whether a given ruling was just.
You evidently haven't read many appeals court opinions or looked at the actual rules for when a case can be appealed at all. Those rules have little if anything to do with whether the ruling was just. They mostly have to do with whether particular procedural rules were followed. As for the actual opinions and rulings issued by appeals courts, after reading many of them, the only clear pattern I can see is that judges start out already knowing what result they want and simply find appropriate laws and precedents to justify it; since the body of law and precedents, taken as a whole, is mutually inconsistent, it is easy to find a justification for any position you like.
I have no doubt you're right. I have read through several appeals court rulings, but they all ruled on the merits (if they didn't I stopped reading, haha).
Guess I'm speaking more about what I believe is the ideal.
You evidently haven't read many appeals court opinions or looked at the actual rules for when a case can be appealed at all. Those rules have little if anything to do with whether the ruling was just. They mostly have to do with whether particular procedural rules were followed. As for the actual opinions and rulings issued by appeals courts, after reading many of them, the only clear pattern I can see is that judges start out already knowing what result they want and simply find appropriate laws and precedents to justify it; since the body of law and precedents, taken as a whole, is mutually inconsistent, it is easy to find a justification for any position you like.